The Power of the Teachers
I canât say enough about the power of a teacher in a childâs life. My fourth-grade music teacher, Mr. St. Lawrence, is the teacher who placed me, along with my best friend, up on the stage with our guitars during lunch, where we literally sang our hearts silly on such original tunes I had composed, including âFlower Power Is in Todayâ and âPeace Now.â Yes, you might have guessed, it was the late 1960s. Mr. St. Lawrence by his actions put that kernel of âI believe in youâ in my brain, making a world of difference in my outlook on myself. A couple of years later in middle school I had another music teacher, Ms. Desrousseau, who also took an interest in me and took me to a jazz concertâwow, my teacher took me somewhere! Talk about feeling special, encouraged, and motivated. I am so thankful to have had teachers early on who took an interest in me and made a difference in my life. I am grateful that finding mentors continued throughout my education even into graduate school, individuals who encouraged and challenged me, not only making a difference in my education but also shaping how I try to be in my role as a teacher with my students. My graduate school mentor and advisor, Carol Chomsky, created a bridge for me between the world of playing music and the world of becoming an educator. And she gave me the wonderful gift of compassion. As a mentor and advisor Carol was simply remarkable and generous. She had a way of critiquing in such a manner that I always felt like my work was getting better, and this was (in hindsight) no easy task. I came into the doctoral program at Harvard without knowing the difference between apostrophes for plurals and possessives. Grammar really didnât matter much as an itinerant professional performer. Nonetheless, what could have been a terribly embarrassing situation, or a case in which another advisor would promptly send her delinquent student to a writing lab, Carol instead exchanged music lessons for grammar lessons. She found a way to put us on equal footing. Every time she critiqued my writing I couldnât wait to make it better. If I could bottle up that feeling and present it to each of my own students I would!
At the time I went through Kâ12 education the arts were a given. And, thank goodness, as the arts provided me with solace, inspiration, companionship, and camaraderie. That same year I was up on the stage, during fourth grade, we had recently moved. Starting at a new school in a new town and making new friends was daunting. I was teased by other kids as a newcomer, and even got into a fistfight. After the fight, and a subsequent afternoon in the principalâs office, things got worse. Kids bullied me in and out of school, and chanted the name âToughyâ endlessly. It was pretty horrible. The arts, however, gave me an outlet and a place to retreat. I would practice for hours on end and began writing song after song. The practice and song writing provided the warmth of creativity, which really felt comforting. My sense of worth in accomplishing being able to play the guitar and write songs balanced the everyday for me in a positive manner. Later I would come to realize that the arts provided me with much more than an outlet and retreat. Though I didnât know it at the time, the arts set a foundation for skills such as discipline and practice. The arts also contributed to a sense of agency, grit, imagination, problem solving, discipline, empathy, and an ability to communicate effectively. At the time, I did grasp how the arts and most specifically music gave me confidence, and a sense that I was capableâcapable of achieving and contributing.
When I work with my own students I begin with the understanding that they, too, are enormously capable. However, in my setting and so many other settings, the majority of students have had little opportunity to experience formal arts education. That may or may not be your situation as well, depending on your educational context. At the beginning of the semester I show my college students pictures of musical instruments and have them name them. My goal in this exercise is to understand the studentsâ starting points. Typically, most students have a hard time identifying and naming the instruments. Many cannot identify what I would consider well-known instruments, such as trumpets and trombones. When we identify the instruments, they jot down the names under the instrumentsâ pictures. To my great surprise, students had to invent spellings for many of the instruments. Here are a few invented spellings for the instruments cello, cymbals, xylophone, violin, harp, saxophone, trombone, flute, guitar, oboe, timpani, and bassoon:
chellow, chelo, cielo, symbols, zilphon, xailaphone, villien, violen, arp, saxiphone, trumbone, fluit, kitour, obo, tymphony, timponee, bazoon.
Soon after the instrument exercise, I ask the same students to make a collage that depicts the arts in their lives. Inevitably, as soon as I give the assignment, hands go up in the room. âWhat is a collage?â they ask. The majority of students had never experienced making or viewing a collage. Once they got the idea, however, they created colorful and imaginative collages, using magazine pictures, photos, and images they took from the Internet. One student, Alex, actually drew his collage (Figure 1.2). The arts in their lives as portrayed in their delightful collages tended to focus on a few themes that surprised me: fashion, tattoos, and cars. Iâll admit my students are quite fashionable; they clearly pay attention to how they present themselves when they arrive to class. And, without a shadow of a doubt, I now understand that their depth of knowledge with regard to tattoos and cars is significant.
At this point you might be wondering about my students. It might come as a surprise to you that these students, so capable, bright, energetic, and full of potential, are nearing completion of their college degrees. These students are all in a teacher prep program and will become teachers within one or two years. I take it quite personally, as any one of these students could have been my daughterâs teacher! In fact, several of my former students have landed in teaching jobs in her school(s). Though my students and I live in Southern California, the lack of arts education is not confined to our neck of the woods. Students across the nation have received fewer arts in their education over the last two decades than any time previous. And, though the amount of arts education has remained somewhat flat according to the National Center for Education Statistics of the Institute of Education Sciences (2012), the gap in access to the arts among the poor has widened significantly. In the decade since the 2012 report even more statistics have become readily accessible. There is a national project called the Arts Education Data Project, which includes an interactive dashboard by which an individual can access details of access to arts education down to individual schools! A link to the project can be found at: https://www.artseddata.org+.
I am heartened that my students can see art in their everyday lives and make the connection that there are elements of art in fashion, tattoos, cars, and other areas they brought up, such as bartending, makeup, and flower arranging. What strikes me, though, is that it is quite possible my students never had the experience of someone putting a paintbrush or a musical instrument in their hands, or the experience of acting or being in a dance ensemble. Their invented spellings of instruments likely indicate that they have never seen music textbooks or concert programs. Their exposure to the arts as exemplified through their identification of fashion and cars could be argued to be a result of consumer marketing as opposed to an education that included art forms. When I see my capable students, I wonder what opportunities and talent have been lost.
California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), where I have taught since 1993, is a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) as well as an Asian American Native American Pacific IslanderâServing Institution (AANAPISI). We are largely a commuter school, and the majority of our students have graduated from local school districts with partnership agreements with the university, by which students gain automatic acceptance to the university. Seventy-five percent of the local public schools in our service area are Title I schools, and 67 percent of our students at the university receive financial aid. Most of our students received free or reduced lunch and breakfast at school. Just because they are now in college, things have not changed. Food insecurity is high on our campus, and we have a food pantry so that our students will not go hungry. The majority of students who attend the university are the first in their family to attend college.
Though we cannot possibly make up for the lack of access to the arts, we can make a significant contribution to these future teachersâ abilities to reach their future students. Recognizing that a full curriculum includes the arts, these future teachers can learn to open the doors that introduce children to the arts and arts-based pedagogy. In so doing, they might very well be a catalyst of change within their local communities as they enter the career of teaching.
In the same Title I schools that my students come from, our university in partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education has initiated several research programs aimed at changing the status quo. SUAVE (Socios Unidos para Artes Via EducaciĂłnâUnited Community for Arts in Education) and Developing Reading Education with Arts Methods (DREAM) are two examples that are discussed in later chapters. Both are arts integration programs that received funding from the Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement as model educational programs.
The good news is that more and more school districts all over the country are recognizing the power of the arts to foster student achievement and engagement, improve school climate, and build parental involvement, and are initiating programs aimed at ensuring that all students and teachers have access to the arts as a subject in and of itself. There are national tools that guide school districts in utilizing Title 1 funds to meet the needs of students through arts-based methods. The website: https://www.title1arts.org provides a detailed (yet easy) process for starting with data, assessing needs, identifying a strategy, developing a plan, submitting the plan, implementing the program, and, finally, evaluating the impact.
One school district that has made an enormous impact in my neck of the woods is Chula Vista, California, right on the border of Mexico beside Tijuana. Under the direction of Superintendent Francisco Escobedo, and Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) coordinator, Lauren Shelton, the district made a clear priority to use Title 1 and Local District funds to bring back over 80 arts educators. As a former police officer, Escobedo saw clearly the consequences of youth who so desperately needed positive supports in their lives and how the arts provided those positive supports. He writes (2019) âWe see first-hand how students and their families benefit from music and arts education. Families are more engaged: Increased attendance. Increased test scores. Increased parent participation. Increased joy and happiness in the eyes of our students.â Chula Vista, along with so many districts across the nation (and of course the world), really understands the power of arts to unleash student, teacher, and parent...