Deconstructing Arts Education

Arts integration can take a lot of different forms, but really it boils down to using art forms to teach alongside the other contents. So, the students are learning both the art form and the other content. At first, this can be a little difficult to integrate into the classroom, but that’s where I help make it easier. In a past podcast I was a part of, I had the opportunity to talk about this subject and use an example of what arts integration looks like in a math class.

Deconstructing Arts Integration

A Sample of How It’s Used in a Math Class

Let’s say you might be teaching multiplication, particularly arrays. A way to integrate the arts is by having the students involved in an art process so that they’re learning multiplication at the same time they are creating and designing art work. The students can use a variety of art supplies to create an array. They could paint them out, use scrap paper to cut and glue an array. The possibilities are endless when it comes to using arts in different subjects.

My Personal Experiences

Now, it could just be one teacher in the school that teachers that way or where I was at, the whole entire school wanted to do it and our superintendents supported that. So, it really takes a completely overhauled culture of that school. There was no art presence there and when the arts integration initiative, after a couple of years, it just flourished and there was art everywhere. It just oozed from the building and the students and it was just such a positive change.

So, when I talk about arts integration, it can be just one thing that’s happening in somebody’s classroom or it can be this huge cultural change for a school or a district.

Challenges with Integrating Arts in Every School

When I walked out of that one school that was a model school and went to the other school, it was a stark contrast. The inequity was crazy. It was heartbreaking.

The first thing that comes to mind is funding because in Mississippi, let’s say your school wants to become arts-integrated, there’s a process that you can partner with the Mississippi’s Arts Commission. They have a whole school’s initiative and you can get some grant funding that way, but it’s not going to cover everything and that grant funding is actually more for professional development and to bring teaching artists in, but you can buy supplies, right?

Not everybody can figure out how to do an art lesson with a stack of old newspapers and some glue and crayon and plus, you know, you want your students to have access to high-quality materials too, but funding is a huge obstacle and it’s an obstacle to teaching that overlaps and hurts the students and to deal with that, I just threw myself into grant writing and got really good at it, but the only way to get better at grant writing is to write a bunch of grants.

Anything I could find where they might be giving away money, I begged for it and there’s an organization in Washington State. The name is escaping me right now, but I called them and I said, “I’m teaching 600 kids art and I don’t have any supplies,” and they bought about $1000 worth of supplies and sent them to us and that got me through my first year.

Art and Arts Integration Doesn’t Have to be Hard

It’s so hard to get teachers to focus on the process versus what they’ve got to hang up in the hallway. Teachers are often scared to even try stuff sometimes because they were afraid it wouldn’t look good. But you know what? It doesn’t matter!

We have to simplify this because I’ve been blogging for a long time as an arts education blogger and I feel like there’s some kind of competition amongst teachers. Nobody talks about it, but that has the cutest, best, art projects. And it’s not fair because some teachers don’t have funding and some teachers can’t figure it out because they’re trying to worry about classroom management and other things.

They don’t know how to make a lesson out of newspaper and we don’t need to compete because as teachers, if we’re competing, then somebody’s students are losing and we cannot let that happen. We need to simplify it so that it’s accessible to everyone.

Suggested Resources for Arts Integration

EducationCloset has lots of great stuff, but my main thing is just to reach out. You can reach out to me and say something like, “Hey, I really like this lesson, but I don’t understand one part,” and actually, people do that all the time. They send me emails and they’ll say, “I read this article that you wrote. Do you have a picture of what it looks like?” And in 20 minutes, going through the 20,000 photos on my phone until I find it and send it!

I want to help because that’s how we make a change in this world. The more teachers we can help, the better the education is for the children and that is what drives me.

Final Thoughts

We can’t keep competing and doing the dog and pony show thing. We gotta be open and transparent if kids are really going to learn. I think the first place to start is going to be looking at classroom management. What is wasting time in the room, right? To simplify what you’re doing, start there.

Look at little bitty things in the classroom management plans that can be tweaked and to maximize the time that you have with the kids (because nobody ever feels like they have enough time with their students, right?). You need more time. So, you gotta start looking at ways to simplify that stuff, and then from there, you can start looking at your lessons. Remember every lesson doesn’t have to have sequins and glitter on it to be an art lesson.

This has been my mantra lately of just life in general is just onward and no fear. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to reach out, don’t be afraid to try new things, don’t be afraid that the product’s not going to look great, just no fear.