What do you get when you put 25 artists and educators in the same room?
By: Jeff Milgram
What do you get when you put 25 English and American artists and educators in the same room and ask them to think about ways to use the arts in the classroom?
Some pretty creative ways to interest students in the arts, in a way that will help strengthen the arts in public schools.
This is the goal of a five-day program at Princeton University that is bringing together about 25 artists and teachers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Bristol and Corby, England.
"The arts are undervalued, they’re looked upon as enrichment, not as essentials," said Bruce Taylor, the program director for Arts for Anyone in Lawrence Township, which was asked by the Arts Council of England to join in a program to do something to boost the status of the arts.
Arts for Anyone, in turn, enlisted the help of McCarter Theatre, the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Delaware Valley Arts Institute of Pennsylvania.
The goal is to bring artists and classroom teachers together to develop "approaches to the arts that have value to both groups," Mr. Taylor said.
Mr. Taylor hopes Working Within the Box, the name of the program, will demonstrate how the arts can enhance basic learning in a variety of subjects such as social studies, language arts and science. He also hopes to increase the cooperation between artists and teachers.
The 25 participants were divided into four teams that were put to work to develop classroom projects. Mr. Taylor believes that at least two of the projects will be implemented in each country.
The participants plan to stay in touch through the Internet comparing, suggesting, advising each other.
"Contrary to the popular perception of artists as self-indulgent exhibitionists, most artists are stable, compassionate citizens trying to invest their talents in the world around them," Mr. Taylor said. "Their altruism is often used against them in that they are undercompensated or not compensated at all when they labor to make a difference in our schools."
Greg Pliska, a musician and composer for Arts for Anyone, presented his group’s project, in which students would take digital photos of their homes and neighborhoods, then create text poetry or lyrics to go with the photos. The words would then generate music, dance, design and performance art.
The participants should have concrete plans drawn up for their projects by the time the program ends Saturday.
"We want to walk away with something we didn’t think of before,’ Mr. Taylor said.