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Back to School 2001: Arts teachers welcome proposed state standards
Thursday, August 30, 2001 By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Cultural Arts Writer
For years, arts teachers have labored to get principals, students, parents and other teachers to believe arts education was just as important as math, science, history and English.
In recent years, they've been buoyed by reports from around the country that conclude a child's capacity to learn is strengthened by an ongoing exposure to the arts.
Nonetheless, the teachers say, when budgets are cut the arts are often the first to go.
Soon, though, arts teachers in Pennsylvania may be handed a new lobbying tool: state standards for arts education that detail what a child in the public school system should know about the arts and when.
Unlike many other subjects, the arts in Pennsylvania have never had such comprehensive state standards. Though other teachers sometimes find such guidelines confining, many art teachers are looking forward to their adoption.
"Someone has to decide, some document has to be the guide," says Mary Beth Gray, a theater teacher at Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel who helped formulate the standards. "We're not saying this is the only way to do things, but at least now the arts are recognized as an academic area. That helps the public know they're important."
The proposed standards have yet to be approved by the state Board of Education. Pennsylvania is one of 48 states that either have arts standards or are working on them.
"They show that we believe in a balanced education for our children," said Beth Cornell, the state Education Department's fine arts and humanities adviser who coordinated the effort. "I firmly believe children should learn to read, write and calculate, but they should also know what creative expression is about."
State education officials began the push for standards in all subject areas in 1996, after the U.S. Department of Education adopted national standards for education. The national standards state that arts education helps students develop "intuition, reasoning, imagination and dexterity," and keeps children from thinking only in a linear or sequential manner.
The national document, on which Pennsylvania's standards are based, also recommends that students be able to analyze works of art, that they become acquainted with exemplary works of art from different cultures and time periods, and that they be able to apply their knowledge of one arts discipline to all the others.
That reference to "all" arts disciplines heartened dance and theater teachers around the country. Traditionally, the arts in schools have been focused on the visual arts and music.
"But that's not necessarily the most appropriate physical expression for all children," said Sarah Tambucci, director of the Arts Education Collaborative, a local resource for teachers, artists and arts administrators.
Tambucci said dance classes are often taught by physical education teachers who don't have dance training and theater productions are often directed by English teachers without theater experience. The state doesn't even offer teacher certification in dance or theater but "we're working on it," Cornell said.
Gray, a theater teacher, said she hoped the inclusion of dance and theater in the standards will encourage schools to add them to the curriculum As she participated in the meetings that led to forming the standards, she said, she was struck by the connection between her discipline and the other arts.
"We're often so involved as artists in our own areas that we tend not to look at the arts as one," she said. "How can music be like visual art? Or like the interpretation of a dance? If you read anything on that list of standards, you can apply it to music, sculpture, dance ..."
That's what makes Pennsylvania's arts standards different from the national ones, which do not look for strands of commonality among the four disciplines. As the arts become more interdisciplinary, though, artists and arts administrators are seeing those links more clearly than ever.
"To me, theater is such a composite of all the arts," said Kellee Van Aken, artistic associate at City Theatre who helps facilitate its Young Playwrights program. "You have dance, music and visual arts in theater."
Under Pennsylvania's standards, students in all grades are encouraged to explain the historical, cultural and social context of a work of art. It is also suggested that by the end of grade 8, they be able to describe how philosophies can be conveyed through the arts.
Arts educators emphasized that the proposed standards are not requirements. Rather, they are guidelines for schools that are deciding what arts classes to offer, or that are re-evaluating their programs.
Local arts groups could benefit from the standards, as well.
"Every arts organization in town is interested in seeing the arts represented in schools because, if students have no knowledge of them, we have no hope for future audiences," Van Aken said. "The inclusion of theater in any state platform is good for us all around."
To see the proposed standards for art and humanities, go to the state Department of Education Web site at www.pde.psu.edu/standard/arts.pdf.
Tomorrow: How do assistant principals learn to be so tough?
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