Guest Editorial:
Physician, Heal Thyself!
By Scott Noppe-Brandon
Ah, the golden days—the 50s, the 60s, even the early 70s—when the arts were firmly ensconced in the curriculum of public schools across our nation. It was all so much better then, wasn’t it? Perhaps it is because, as another year winds down, I grow impatient with mooning over the past; perhaps it is because of Allan Kozinn’s Christmas Day article in The New York Times, which pleads for a renewal of arts in education, and briefly mentions Lincoln Center Institute as one of the organizations doing good work in this sphere—but I feel like shouting: “Let’s get it together, already!”
Yesterday will never be again, but we have all the makings of a bright new era in our hands, and surely this is more exciting than repackaging what once was. At no other time in American history has education experienced the concern, ideas, and influence of so many divisions of our society beyond education itself, including politics, economy, and industry. No state of the union—good or bad—throughout the 20th century and into this one has created the present conditions, in which a dramatic and complete rethinking of the basic values that frame our educational discussion is both needed and possible. And that includes, perhaps for the first time in any real way, the role of the arts.
It is a quaint legend that in those good old days everyone loved how the arts were taught in the schools. During my 20 years at Lincoln Center Institute, countless business leaders, elected officials, and philanthropists have confided, in an informal moment and with a sheepish grin, “you know, I hated being forced to play an instrument. Gosh, I stunk at it!” Yet it is true—and extremely important—that the arts became a major part of the lives of these same men and women. In other words, teaching a student to play an instrument is one thing (no, Lincoln Center Institute does not do that); teaching all students, not just those who are already interested in the arts, that dance, music, theater, painting, and all other art forms open unsuspected doors to a life well lived, is another: and yes, Lincoln Center Institute does do that. That is why I feel such excitement for the chance that the arts will finally be recognized for their vital role within our lives, be it in school or out of school.
We are witnessing a unique convergence of factors that can make this come true. The single greatest transition of teaching and administrative staff in education within the past 50 years, and most likely within the next 50, is taking place. We are finally waking up to the flaws, fatal in many ways, in our thinking that confused the necessity for more accountability in education (the positive side of NCLB) with standardization and over-testing, known far and wide as the negative side of NCLB. Both political camps favor accountability and are determined to make our educational systems more transparent and more accountable for its actions—and that is a good thing. We, the progressives, have liked ourselves a bit too much over the past few decades and somehow we have wound up in an educational crisis within our urban areas. Perhaps it is time to tell ourselves: physician, heal thyself!
There is brain and maturity drain through attrition, myopic focus on over testing, low achievement rates fostered by unmotivated teachers, and students entering the workforce while lacking basic skills and capacities, let alone the imaginative and creative capacities demanded with growing anxiety by the many professions that need to hire these 21st-century thinkers and doers. The Senate, in one of the few bipartisan efforts of recent years, passed the America Competes Act 88–8! The bill calls for a major new emphasis on the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) within our nations schools.
Hmmm—where are the arts then, and why am I not just enthusiastic but extremely hopeful about the role of the arts within education? Because if you add up all of the above, it is clear that we need creative and imaginative people in the workforce. Not just a few in the best jobs, but in the jobs across the economic spectrum. I fully subscribe to the notion that imagination, creativity, and innovation must be seen as essential and basic aspects of the architecture of American society in the current century. Even the 9/11 Commission, under the chapter “Institutionalizing Imagination,” called for making imagination a skill in the service of the nation by claiming that it must be routinized, even bureaucratized. Can there be a better reality check?
With all this in mind, allow me to state unequivocally: the progress of our society depends on imagination being nurtured as a skill in the classrooms, and the access to the imagination is not possible if we marginalize the arts. Simple and true. The marginalization must not happen and it certainly will not happen if we in the arts make sure that our work is relevant, even essential, to the educational needs of today. By that I mean that our focus must be the student, not the cultural institutions, the unions, or the elected officials. If it is a fact that the students are the future, then surely education must be instrumental in the building of that future if it is to be a part of it.
What can be done to make the arts part of education, relevant and productive? First, dispense with short-term feel-good work and audience development dressed as education: make the work truly educational and clearly understandable to all. We must define its educational and philosophical roots just as every other subject in education is required to be. TERC math, Whole Language, Phonics, Lucy Caulkins, multiple intelligences, backward mapping—all of these and other educational methods have a stated mission that both explains and defends its structure. Only in the arts do we—schools, policy makers, cultural organizations, etc.—believe it is sufficient to just do it. We are not a field or a profession. We do not build on the work of others. So arts group after arts group has a contract to provide “services” to the schools. It is not good enough to be a service provider; we must be educational partners and concept definers, so that the partnership can truly be a joined arts-and-education effort. My former mentor, Mark Schubart, believed that funding organizations in the arts should fund arts organizations to present high-quality, fully realized performances for school audiences and leave the educational aspect of the work to those organizations that can study it, improve on it, and discuss its educational philosophy.
Next, we need to build the infrastructure to pull off the kind of partnerships that are necessary to make this work. School systems should support the hiring of arts teachers along with spending funds on building the infrastructure required by the outside of school organizations that seriously work in an educational context, not merely as service providers. The school system must decide when it creates relationships with outside community organizations whether the effort is vendor-based or education-based.
Excellence: it is a standard that should be aspired to by everyone. It is non-partisan, it is inspirational, and with hard work, achievable. As I’ve said before, to those who objected that public education in urban centers is not rocket science: you’re right, it is harder. But why not shoot for the moon? #
Scott Noppe-Brandon is Executive Director of The Lincoln Center Institute.
