|
SPECIAL ISSUE ON ART AND TEACHING:
FACULTY MEMBERS SHARE THEIR PERSPECTIVES ON AESTHETIC EDUCATION
Feature Articles
Contributed By:
Carol Korn-Bursztyn
Phyllis Gold Gluck
Karel Rose
Jennifer McCormack
Linda Louis
Donna Linderman
Greetings from the Dean
Deborah Shanley,
Dean, School of Education
Brooklyn College's School of Education
is proud of its partnerships with local school districts and our city's
cultural institutions that strive to build a continuum of quality arts
programs. This edition of The Chalkboard will introduce you to a range of
best practices in fine arts, visual and performing arts in teacher
education.. Through shared dialogues and rich partnership efforts, we hope to
ensure that every student experiences the power and beauty of the arts along
with the joy, creativity, and intellectual stimulation that standards-based
arts education programs can provide.
As educators we need to
develop additional ways to tap the tremendous potential for creativity that
exists in students. The School
of Education has been
working over the past seven years to integrate art education into all phases
of the curriculum, forming collaborative alliances with arts organizations to
bring curriculum content and performance into the process of teacher
preparation. Through these collaborations we have come to realize the profound
importance of art in the lives of students and teachers.
In this issue, faculty
share some of their insights and experiences in esthetic education. In many
cases, it is the students who provide artistic surprises as they give
palpable form their experience. With the tools acquired in their preparatory
years here, we are confident that they will blossom into caring and
challenging teachers who will bring out the best in their students.
Scenes from an Early Childhood Classroom:
Research in Literacy and the Arts in Early Education
Carol Korn, associate professor of education;
Faculty director, Carleton Washburne Early Childhood Center
At the Early Childhood
Center, the lab school of the School of Education at Brooklyn College, the
arts form a core component of the curriculum. The three-and four-year-old
children enrolled at the center enjoy ready access to paints, crayons,
markers, pencils, clay, and assorted collage materials. The enthusiasm with
which they spontaneously give creative expression to the contents of their
minds through art, play, movement and language is remarkable. We thought
about how we might connect their early experiences in, and affinity for, the
arts to the idea of the arts as human activity--an experiential world shared
by adults and children, rather than a world inhabited solely by children. How
could we strengthen the connections between the arts and early childhood
curricula, especially in the area of literacy, to create a powerful arena for
both personal expression and for learning about and being connected to
diverse human enterprises and experiences?
Out of these questions
arose Language, Literacy, and the Arts in Early Education, an action research
project currently in its third year at the Early Childhood
Center. This research
project, which is partially funded by the City University of New York's
Faculty Research Award Program as well as by joint funding by the Lincoln
Center Institute for the Arts in Education, explores how engagement with the
arts can facilitate the development of young children's communicative and
expressive abilities. We invited the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in
Education to join us in investigating how young children create art and
respond to works of art, how the arts can be connected to their daily lives
in school, and how early childhood programs may successfully develop
collaborative relationships with local cultural and arts institutions.
Early Childhood Center
teachers work with Lincoln Center Institute teaching artists in the visual
arts, music, dance, and theater to identify works of art representative of
diverse cultural backgrounds that will provide a jumping-off point for
children's expressiveness and for learning across a variety of cognitive
domains. The project also explores the process of developing a collaborative
relationship between an early childhood center and a cultural and arts
institution, two organizations with differing viewpoints, frames of
reference, and often, ways of working.
We invite interested faculty to join us in working on and extending the
center's research agenda. For more information, visit our web site:
http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/schooled/ecc/ecc-index
Reflections on the Arts in an Interdisciplinary Context
Phyllis
Gold Gluck
Professor of education
Advocates for multidisciplinary and
integrated studies believe that students do not see contexts and connections
among the disciplines or in their own lives; that subjects are isolated and
significant knowledge often falls between the spaces of traditional
disciplines. As our students understand how learning is interrelated, they
grow both personally and professionally bringing new sensibilities, critical
skills and teaching strategies into their classrooms.
 It is through the arts that the
heritage of a people is transmitted. When examining how levels of structure,
form and meaning interact as well as the embedded signs, symbols and
metaphors, the diversity and commonalties of cultures is illuminated. Through
the languages of art, meanings are transformed, retained and shared.
Experiences in and with the arts enable us to create, perform, interpret and
improvise, and we can see, hear, move and feel with greater sensitivity and
purpose.
Authentic themes that disclose
fundamental patterns and valid correlations are essential for linking the
humanities, the social sciences, mathematics, the sciences, technology and
the media. Our secondary students collaborate in multidisciplinary teams,
they examine their own disciplines through the lenses of other subjects, and
they create projects choosing the art forms and materials that best express
their own ideas and feelings. Themes explored in class include:
The Idea of the Modern:
The movements and "-isms" that challenged expectations, extended
the frontiers of the arts, changed our world and also shaped education.
The Search for Utopia:
Imagining the ideal
and the unimaginable unleashed; including manifestoes, pageants, rallies,
anthems, revolutionary posters and films, urban planning, communes and
depictions of paradise.
Sacred Precincts:
We shape our places and they in turn shape us. All cultures build both
dwelling spaces and ceremonial spaces, from the open to the closed, from the
communal and public to the familial and the private. We examine special
precincts dedicated to memory, commemoration, celebration, sanctuary, worship
and leisure.
Ironically, while the arts are treated marginally in our schools,
those regimes that control, censor and destroy works of art fully recognize
the power of the arts.
Aesthetic
Education and Teacher Education
Karel Rose
Professor of education
When prospective teachers dance
their names, sing scat, discover Mondrian in their own line drawings, change
Orpheus into guitar playing hippie, or convert an eggplant into a vase, they
are doing transformative work. Teaching is complex because, among other
demands, it requires these improvisations and translations from one realm
of knowledge into the space and time constraints of a classroom.
The collaboration with the Lincoln
Center Institute has both dignified and facilitated this work and highlighted
the aesthetic dimension of teaching. For too long, art encounters have been locked into
the false dichotomy of either art for its own sake or art as a means to an
end. The work of Elliot Eisner and Harry Broudy along with my own
teaching experiences have convinced me that it is not an either/or
situation. We can enjoy art purely for itself but we can also view it
as a rigorous opportunity for reflection and intellectual growth. A
painting, a symphony, a poem, or a ballet may be the pathway for thinking
about social issues, cultural differences, personal concerns, artistic forms
or the creative process itself. In my classes, aesthetic experiences
have served a curriculum agenda that has literacy as its centerpiece.
As students reconstruct meanings, develop thinking in different symbol
systems, activate prior knowledge, and organize experiences as narrative,
they are shaping their language understandings. Thoughtful engagements
with the arts can overcome the damaging notion that arts education is
frivolous and simply an add-on to the “real” curriculum.
Responding to student interest, I
established a Guild for Aesthetic Education to provide a forum for students
interested in a deeper exploration of the role of the arts in
education. At Guild meetings, students meet with faculty from the School of Education, liberal arts departments,
and teaching artists from the Lincoln Center Institute to reflect on ways in
which the arts may be translated into school settings. Exercises,
discussions and hands-on activities are designed to develop aesthetic
sensitivity and critical thinking abilities. Guild members are kept
informed of art happenings throughout the metropolitan area. In the
past, only students from second-level courses and higher were invited to
participate. However, this semester all Education students were invited
to attend.
Guild students have participated as
interns at Lincoln Center Institute and attended special events that are not
always available to all students. In March, two students from the guild
attended an arts advocacy conference in Washington, D. C. which was financed
by Dean Shanley and the Office of the Dean for Student life through a Barnes
& Noble grant. They then shared their findings at a guild meeting and
with education classes. Students have also made presentations at meetings of
the Center for Educational Change.
Students have expressed their
appreciation for the opportunity to engage with faculty and teaching artists
in this informal setting. Deep relationships have developed and faculty
have served as mentors and friends. Students have pursued honors
projects in the arts and many have received recommendations when applying for
positions in schools where the arts are a priority. Brooklyn College,
located in a cultural and artistic capital of the world and buttressed by an
education faculty committed to aesthetic knowing, is in a unique position to
influence the direction of teacher education at this critical time.
The Day of the Poet
Jennifer
McCormick
Assistant professor of education
The annual Day of the Poet brings public, private,
and parochial high-school students together to participate in a series of
readings by professional poets and to engage in intensive poetry-writing
workshops led by poets and teachers. This year 140 students from nearly
thirty schools throughout Brooklyn gathered at Brooklyn College to hear
Sapphire, author of Push; Dennis Nurkse, poet laureate of Brooklyn; and
Robert Hershon, author of The German Lunatic.
The event was conceived by
Professor Peter Taubman of the School
of Education and has
been supported by the school in conjunction with the Ethyl R. Wolfe Institute
for the Humanities. In addition, the Wolfe Institute and the Brooklyn Borough
President's Office have funded the annual publication of poetry journals
containing the work of participating students and teachers.
Day of the Poet is a highly
anticipated event for Brooklyn teens. One
student from Erasmus
High School
participated in last year's event and pleaded with his teacher until he was
allowed to return this year. "I worked for this," he said, "I
deserve to be here."
The New York Times, The Daily News
and National Public Radio have covered Day of the Poet over the past two
years. For some schools, this has meant that students received positive attention
from the press for the first time.
The following schools have
participated in Day of the Poet since its inception in 1996: Bishop Ford High
School, Abraham Lincoln High School, Bishop Loughlin High School, Brooklyn
College Academy, Brooklyn International High School, Brooklyn Studio School,
Brooklyn Technology Business and Technology, Erasmus Hall, Bushwick High
School, Bushwick Outreach Center, Canarsie High School, Clara Barton High
School, Cobble Hill High School, EBC-Bushwick, EBC-East New York. El Puente
Academy for Peace and Justice. Fontbonne Hall Academy, Fort Hamilton High
School, George Westinghouse High School, Grady High School, High School for
Redirection, Lafayette High School, Midwood High School, Nazareth High
School, New Utrecht High School, Pacific High School, Packer Collegiate
Institute, Paul Robeson High School, Poly Prep, St Edmund Prep, South Shore
High School, Teen Aid, Thomas Jefferson High School, Van Arsdale High School,
W. H. Maxwell Vocational High School, Yeshivah of Flatbush
Preparing Teachers for Learning
In and Through the Arts
Linda Louis, assistant professor of education
Education students are entering the
teaching profession at a time when the arts are being strengthened in New York City public
schools. Brooklyn College is preparing them well with courses like EDUC 43,
Teaching the Creative Arts, which introduces students to the unique features
of artistic learning and helps them become more confident and skilled at
planning arts activities that support and challenge children. In this course
the visual arts, music, dance, and drama are studied from two perspectives.
First, students focus on learning in the arts. Class discussions, readings,
and guided studio experiences, help students reflect on how the arts function
within the culture and their own lives. Later, in their field placements,
they concentrate on learning through the arts as they design meaningful
integrated arts activities that enable children to demonstrate the growing
complexity of their ideas and feelings across the curriculum.
A number of students have become so
excited about artistic ways of knowing and learning that they have extended
their field experiences beyond the course. Some students teach art classes in
the after-school program of the Early
Childhood Center,
serving as peer mentors to other students enrolled in EDUC 43. Others assist
with clay classes for high school sophomores as part of our collaboration
with the Boston
College Academy.
Former students are teaching after-school interdisciplinary arts classes in
local Brooklyn schools and are assisting in
the professional development workshops we offer to the faculty and community
administrators.
This clay figure is a good
example of how learning in the arts prepares students for learning through
the arts. As Jean Valery, a student in EDUC 43, was exploring the properties
of clay, a shape reminded him of how his body moves while practicing tai chi.
This association between the clay's flexibility and palpability and features
of his experience, such as a leg suspended in mid-air, provided him with the
means to capture the movement authentically.
Like most students, Valery expected
that EDUC 43 would teach him how to use materials to make things. Instead, he
learned that sometimes the material itself informs the idea. He also expected
that art projects would make learning in other subjects more fun for
children. He discovered that the reason the visual arts are particularly
suited to interdisciplinary work with children is that they involve the
creation of personal meaning. Subject area content becomes more relevant,
memorable, and meaningful to children when it is connected to their real-life
experience. These two discoveries about artistic thinking will ultimately
help Valery-and other EDUC 43 students-- to create an arts-rich classroom in
which children can be active constructors of their own knowledge.
Brooklyn College Theater
and Education Initiative
Donna Linderman, assistant professor of
education and theater
The Brooklyn College Theater and Education
Initiative (BCTEI), is a project of the Department of Theater’s M.F.A.
program in Dramaturgy developed from a collaboration between the Department
of Theater and the School
of Education. It is
committed to the expansion of theater in classroom settings, training
teaching artists and classroom teachers, and providing access to quality
theater events for New York City
high school students and their teachers. The initiative provides an
opportunity to deepen dialogue between BCTEI and partnership schools through
practical theater work and to discuss ways to integrate theater into the
classroom with a focus on the new New
York State
learning standards.
BCTEI has established partnerships
with eight area high schools, including a group of College Now high schools.
Together they stage performances and provide support materials to eighteen
public and private schools, serving more than two thousand students and their
teachers.
The Department of Theater offers
schooltime matinees of its mainstage productions at Brooklyn College’s
Gershwin Theater. The spring 2001 program includes Neil Simon’s Brighton
Beach Memoirs and the M.F.A. Thesis production of James Engelhardt’s Slave
Trade. Graduate students from Brooklyn
College’s theater
program serve as BCTEI teaching artists,-conducting pre- and post-show
workshops at partnership schools. They work closely with classroom teachers
to structure theater activities that will expand students’ understanding of
matinee productions. Every effort is made during these sessions to connect
workshop activities to classroom curriculum
Students also have the chance to
meet Brooklyn College actors, directors, and
designers in a post-show discussion series, “Talkback,” which provides a
forum for questions and comments about the production they have just seen. To
encourage student audiences to share the theater experience with their
families, BCTEI provides discounted vouchers valid for the 2000-01
season.
BCTEI has been actively supporting
student productions from participating schools. In February a group of
Bushwick High School College Now students performed their contemporary,
bilingual adaptation of Romeo and Juliet--R’omeo and Giulietta to an audience
of Brooklyn College
students, Department of Theater and School of Education
faculty, and guests from the CUNY Office of Academic Advisement and the New
York City Board of Education Chancellor’s office.
Upcoming BCTEI activities include
two on-campus Saturday theater workshops led by Brooklyn College
faculty and production artists for students and their classroom teachers:
“Making It Look Good,” introduces the production design process, and “Making
It Real,” which focuses on how to approach text as an actor. Workshops will
culminate in visits to technical rehearsals and matinees at the college.
|
Volume 1 Number 3