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Tools for Planning
We are pleased to bring you highlights taken from Young Audiences' Arts for Learning School Planning Guide. Here you will find some helpful advice on how to bring the arts to your school. Remember, the arts are a powerful teaching tool and an essential ingredient for an educated society. The steps you take to increase their presence in your school will reap magnificent benefits. Start where you are.
Getting Started
Is your school really using the power of the arts for teaching and learning? To find out click here:
What is your school's current arts climate? To find out click here:
 | Arts-In-Education IQ Survey.pdf |
What is your school's current arts climate? To find out click here:
| Teacher Survey.pdf |
The State's Standards
While developing a school arts plan, it's important to ask:
What arts standards do our students need help meeting?
Which art disciplines should we focus on to help our students meet learning benchmarks across curricula?
For more information on Oregon State Standards visit: www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/real/standards/
For more information on Washington State EALRs visit: www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/EALR_GLE.aspx
Your School's Needs
Now that you’ve decided to use the arts in a thoughtful way, what do you need to consider in creating a plan for change? Here are some questions that should help jumpstart the brainstorming process.
- What is the educational focus of the arts plan?
- What will your students know and/or be able to do as a result of this plan?
- What building or district learning goals will be achieved?
- How will you evaluate the learning benefits of the plan?
- Is there a particular part of the curriculum that is a part of the plan?
- Should a particular grade level be targeted initially?
- What areas of the curriculum should be our initial focus?
- Which teachers in which grade levels or areas would be most receptive to this type of curriculum? Are there teachers with a special interest in the arts? Different learning styles? Working with community resources?
- If all students are not targeted by the plan, will they be involved at all? How? How can our initial plan serve as a building block for subsequent years, when we will involve more students and additional curriculum areas?
Why the Arts Change the Learning Experience
While learning other disciplines may often focus on development of a single skill or talent, the arts regularly engage multiple skills and abilities. Engagement in the arts nutures the development of cognitive, social and personal competencies. Although the Champions of Change researchers conducted their investigations and presented their findings independently, a remarkable consensus exists among their findings:
- The arts reach students who are not otherwise being reached.
- The arts reach students in ways that they are not otherwise being reached.
- The arts connect students to themselves and each other.
- The arts transform the environment for learning.
- The arts provide learning opportunities for the adults in the lives of young people.
- The arts provide new challenges for those students already considered successful.
- The arts connect learning experiences to the world of real work.
How the Arts Change the Learning Experience
Learning is deepest when learners can represent what they have learned. The quality arts learning experiences described by the Champions of Change researchers regularly contain project-based learning elements. The best programs display them in great breadth and depth. To be effective, the arts learning experience will also:
- Enable young people to have direct involvement with the arts and artists. Young people become and see themselves as artists and learn various disciplines through hands-on arts experiences. They actively engage with artistic content, materials, and methods.
- Require signigicant staff development. The best teachers are lifelong students. High-impact programs demand both adequate staff preparation and strong administrative support. Well-trained staff and teachers also become leaders for institutional and systemic change.
- Support extended engagement in the artistic process. Sustained engagement during individual sessions as well as expanded program length suport enhanced learning opportunities. Superior results are also associated with the concept of “practice” and the development of a sense of “craft.”
- Promote complexity in the learning experience. Students who otherwise complain of boredome become fully challenged. Unlike other learning experiences that seek right or wrong answers, engagment in the arts allows for multiple outcomes. Effective learning in the arts is both complex and multidimensional.
- Allow management of risk by the learners. Rather than see themselves as “at-risk”, students become managers of risk who can make decisions concerning artistic outcomes and even their lives.
- Engage community leaders and resources. Another recent study, Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts That Value Arts Education (http://www.aep-arts.org/ and http://www.pcah.gov/), found that “the single most critical factor in sustaining arts education in their schools is the active involvement of influential segments of the community in shaping and implementingthe policies and programs of the district.”
Funding Your School’s Plan
Many, if not most, schools have limited budgets with little or no money set aside for additional arts education programming. Consider the following ideas for sources of funds to support your school arts for learning plan.
The Portland Public Schools Foundation's Teacher Grants, Arts Alive and New Vision grants are particularly of interest.
The Regional Arts and Culture Councils' Arts Education Fast Track grant program funds public and private schools in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties.
Federal Government funding sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, can be found in this extensive site.
The Oregon Arts Commission and the Washington State Arts Commission have a variety of funding programs for the arts in schools, school districts and communities.
Target offers grants to schools to support creativity and cultural experiences.
Lowe's Toolbox for Education Awards provide funding to K-12 public schools and is designed primarily for parent teacher groups.
- School District Funds. There may be funds available for curriculum-related arts programming or for particular educational objectives such as increasing literacy, creating safe and drug-free schools, or helping disadvantaged or at-risk students. Check with your school principal to determine if your arts program may be eligible for special funding.
- Professional Development. Most school districts invest in professional development for their staff by offering training in new ways of teaching, curriculum design and assessment methodologies. Some existing programs may be suited to help your staff implement a new arts for learning plan. If no programs are available, speak with district planners about creating new seminars or courses.
- Parent Organizations. Check with your parent group - they are often your best advocates. Ask them to budget funds for arts programming. Parent organizations are know for creative fundraising and could sponsor concerts, dinners or auctions to help raise money for school arts progrmams.
- Young Audiences' Run For The Arts. This yearly jogathon enables students, teachers and parents to raise funding for arts programming in their schools. Run funds can be used for a range of art-related expenses, from astist fees to buses, art supplies to planning time. Young audiences provides instructions, motivational prizes, a community-wide public awareness campaign and projext coordination. For more information about Run For The Arts, call Young Audiences, (503) 225-5900.
- Grant Programs. There are a number of foundations and granting organizations that can be approached about funding your arts program. Many schools and teachers balk at the idea of grant writing because it does take precious time. Do you have parents or volunteers who could help you? Check out the following websites for information about grantwriting and specific grant programs:
The Portland Public Schools Foundation's Teacher Grants, Arts Alive and New Vision grants are particularly of interest.
The Regional Arts and Culture Councils' Arts Education Fast Track grant program funds public and private schools in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties.
Federal Government funding sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, can be found in this extensive site.
The Oregon Arts Commission and the Washington State Arts Commission have a variety of funding programs for the arts in schools, school districts and communities.
Target offers grants to schools to support creativity and cultural experiences.
Lowe's Toolbox for Education Awards provide funding to K-12 public schools and is designed primarily for parent teacher groups.
