Cutting The Arts By Attrition

I am fortunate in my position in the Curriculum and Instruction department to be able to speak with educators across disciplines and grade levels.  It provides me with points of view to which I would normally never have access.  I see how content delivery in the sciences has been impacted by the Common Core State Standard in the English Language Arts.  I am able to see the stress in the physical education as they try to figure out what writing across the curriculum is going to look like for them.

On Friday, the director of the Visual and Performing Arts department called me in to his office to discuss our collaboration on the first play of the year, The Great Gatsby. Many of our students have already read the book in their classes, and in order to drive the ticket sales, we had been spoken about getting them to write critiques of the play for classroom credit.  The thought is that by bringing in students who must be there, it will follow that they will bring people with them to the performances. This activity also ensures that there are literacy components being exercised in conjunction with the play.

Then we hit a snag in our cross-curricular collaboration.  He asked about bringing students out of their English classes for a preview of the show during the school day.  He eagerly looked up at me and said, "what do you think about bringing the kids for a preview? We can have all the ELA groups who read it, and then invite a couple other groups to come along to see just a bit of the play.  That could really get them excited about going home and telling everyone they know that they should come see the show."

On the surface, it seems like a great idea.  Kids could be writing about what they've read and what they're seeing. Comparing, analyzing creative decision-making, and perhaps creating a play they feel works better are all ways that students could engage with the material, so it actually surprised me to hear the words leave my mouth. "No, Pete. We can't take the classroom time away from the teacher. The kids have assessments the following week, and the teachers need the time to ensure they're ready."

Yup. I opted my students out of exposure to the school play because they needed to focus on getting ready for their Model Curriculum Unit 2 Benchmark Assessment.

But maybe that's the point.  We have been celebrating for years that we're a district that hasn't cut their arts department.  When I look that the evidence, it seems to me that there is something darker underway.  Our lower grades have had their after-school activities reduced to only Fridays in favor of Monday - Thursday educational support time after school. Students are no longer able to take all the arts classes they want due to required test-prep courses.

No one needed to cut our arts budget.  Students not taking the arts classes will ultimately spell the end of the arts in our district.  It is a case of the arts being cut by attrition, and it's strangling the variety of courses to which our students have access.

(Violin pic taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/27206818@N08/3194317755/sizes/m/in/photostream/)

Just a Teacher

We in education live in interesting times. We are easy political pawns as the general public looks for answers as to where their money goes.  We're just teachers. Plenty has been written about the overpaid and underworked teachers in public education.  Plenty has been written to refute those misguided notions.  More should be written detailing the salaries when comparing similar years of experience and education and certifications. Unfortunately, it is often met with scorn and resentment and disbelief. I have had these conversations with friends, family, and neighbors, but that's not what this is.

It's easy to push educators. If we push back, we don't care about the children.  We've heard it all before.  We're just teachers.  We work part time. We want full time pay. We have too many benefits provided to us.  Our underfunded pension system is sucking money from the system.  We don't have enough accountability.  We are not making our students competitive with the rest of the world.  I can argue each of those points, but that's not what this is.

So what does it mean to be just a teacher? It means we make a difference in the lives of the students placed in front of us. Good, bad, or indifferent, we impact those lives.  Through our words and actions, those students feel worth, pride, shame, success, failure, satisfaction, pain, and joy.  We hold that power.  To be just a teacher is to understand that we are no longer the keeper of the information.  It is up to us to determine the path that a student needs to travel to gain the experiences in a field for which you already have expertise. It is up to us to inspire students to want to learn more than we planned.  We have the ability - the responsibility - to ensure that the students we teach have the tools and desire to become bigger and brighter than we ever hoped to be.

Sure, you're just a teacher. Think back to the people who made you who you are today.  The teachers on that list - and you'll be hard pressed to find the individual who claims to have gotten where they are without the inspiration of at least one teacher - are sure to have something in common.  Those teachers represented more than a courier of information.  They were friends and mentors and role models.  They were counselors and financial advisors and motivational speakers. They were parents and grandparents and religious leaders and coaches. So yeah, we're just a teacher, and that's all part of it.  It's part of the job, and quite frankly, it's the part of the job we love, and it's the part of the job that makes us an easy target because we're so unwilling to allow the pain we feel in our personal lives to break down the experiences we're giving our students.  Every teacher who inspires is just a teacher.  For that reason, I'm proud to be just a teacher.

If you're just a teacher, too, I'd love to hear from you. Leave your comment here or use #JustaTeacher to let the world know what being just a teacher means to you.




(Picture above taken from: http://www.spidvid.com/blog/2011/02/multiple-video-projects-time/)