Arts Education Advocacy 2.0

A lot of the work I do could probably fall under the broad head of “Advocacy.”  Anyone who does that type of work can tell you, you rarely meet individuals who are opposed to arts education.  The school board member who voted to eliminate all of the elementary art jobs in the county or the principal who has not attended a school concert in the 25 years he has worked in the building will both tell you they support arts education.  So what’s going on here?  Why are those who are actively working against a comprehensive arts education for our students giving us lip service?  And how are they getting away with it?

There may be a lot of answers to that question, but let me suggest one: it’s our fault.  Or to put it more precisely, it’s the fault of the type of advocacy we have been doing.  The model of advocacy we use was really pioneered in the early and mid-twentieth century, and I would suggest that it is time we rethink its usefulness to us.  For one thing, we have learned that some modes of advocacy are harmful.  Earlier arts education advocacy, for example, did not place the arts at the center of the curriculum with math and language.  As a consequence, even most arts teachers do not consider these subjects part of the core curriculum.  For another thing, the world has changed.  The children we teach today are different than those from a century past, and our message must keep pace with their needs.

Although it is beyond the scope of this short message to propose what “Arts Education Advocacy 2.0” might look like, I would like to suggest a few key principles.  Some of them aren’t new, but perhaps the emphasis is.

1. Competency is our best advocacy tool.  We often treat our instruction separately from our advocacy, but they are closely related.  A poor arts classroom experience can undo our advocacy work in a matter of days.  When we seek to build our understanding of both our discipline and our pedagogy, we are serving the message and building our best advocates: our students.
2. Be passionate about the message.  Many of us came away from college brimming with figures about test scores and the arts, ready to quote away at anyone who challenged the value of what we taught.  While it is still important to know that children who study the arts outperform their peers on virtually every measure of academic achievement, that’s not why we teach.  What’s more, it’s not why our students take arts classes.  Learn to speak from the heart about why the arts really matter, why they are essential to our culture and to the human spirit.
3. Join the larger arts education community.  Especially in smaller communities, we cannot interact only with others in our own discipline, and we certainly can’t afford to bicker over time and resources.  All of us need to passionately defend dance, theatre, visual art, and music, and see all of these as connected.  We need the regular certified teachers and the teaching artists and the community arts organizations.  We are stronger as a community for it and we are more likely to see fruit from our advocacy efforts.
4. Target your efforts.  Find out who the policy makers and funders really are.  This requires becoming educated about how decisions are made.  Lobbying the Governor's office may be wasted effort if the issue is a Board of Education policy.  Calling the Department of Education may not be helpful if the problem is related to legislative funding.  More than anything, stop bitching and moaning.  Complaining in the teacher's lounge and at the conference accomplishes nothing.
5. It's not about you.  You're important.  We get it, really we do.  We all have insecurities and we all need validation.  But the simple fact is that our task is too big for us to worry about offending you.  Arts education is not about what you studied in college or what you would like to be doing or what kind of students you wish attended your school.  Stop complaining about how kids today are apathetic.  Stop complaining that they use your class for a "dumping ground."  Our task is about the children that we teach - all of them, no matter where they come from or who they are.
6. The medium is the message.  We sometimes forget how powerful our art is, especially for those who are not artists themselves.  While advocates of many causes use their words, which can be quite powerful, we also have art.  A gallery show or a concert in a public space might be enough to spark public interest.  Maybe we should even think about using our art to speak more directly to the message. 
7. Demand more art.  A very old book says, “Ye have not because ye ask not.”  Every week teachers ask me why things are the way they are in their school and are surprised to hear me ask in return, “Have you asked them to change?”  In some instances, school administrators do not know how to help arts programs flourish.  In other instances, there may be those who are resistant to building comprehensive arts programs.  In either case, the arts educator must become the person who says, “We must have more of what is good for our students.”  S/he must also be the person who encourages parents and community members to make the same demands.  If our high schools stopped their football teams, there would be broad community outrage.  It is appropriate that our parents and community expect schools to teach dance, theatre, visual art, and music.

All of us are expected to act as advocates for arts education in our various roles.  If we are not prepared to express the value of the work we do, we cannot expect others to do it for us.