Advocacy
in the Era of Covid-19 Dennis Argul dennisargul@gmail.com
For this month’s contribution in Advocacy, I interviewed Mr. Bob Morrison, Founder/CEO at Quadrant Research and Arts Ed NJ, who has been the spearhead of all the efforts in the area of Arts Education and Advocacy for the State of NJ and his diligence led to the preparation of the ‘September Ready - Fall 2020 Guidance for Arts Education.’ DA: Bob, we know that Advocacy for the arts is a touch enough job in an everyday ‘normal’ life…what makes it even tougher in these ‘Covid’ days where we find ourselves? BM: Advocacy under normal circumstances is really not that difficult. It’s a discipline that has to be developed. It’s like a muscle and if you use the muscle it gets stronger and you can use it in more ways. If you ignore it, it shrivels up, so then when you go to use it, you go ‘hey what happened to my muscle?’ Well, you haven’t been using it, so it weakened. Advocacy is the same way. I talk in terms of advocacy being not something you do, but something you are. It becomes embedded as to how you operate under normal circumstances, as opposed to ‘teach, teach, teach, ok now advocacy’ while you are teaching you are being an advocate. While you are communicating with your peers and administrator you are also advocating for your program. So, the more you’re exercising that process in educating people about what it is you are doing in your program, how your program is impacting students, how it’s contributing to the school community, how it’s contributing to the broader community, the better you become. What makes now challenging as it relates to advocacy, is that there’s so many unknowns. As a result of that, new information is coming up every day that challenges whatever current sets of assumptions are that people have, like whether or not we can have our kinds of programs. It makes it a little more difficult because for our programs to be held successfully we have to have certain things put in place. Some of the TEMPO
things we have control over, like mitigation strategies. We also have to get information on things that we don’t necessarily have total control over, like if I’m a choir teacher teaching in a small room, with no windows and poor ventilation, ‘what can be done to make that space inhabitable for a vocal program?’ The answer to that question is probably, ‘nothing.’ There may not be anything that you can do to that space, so then that leads to the next question, ‘if that space won’t work, then where can the choir go?’ Can we go to the auditorium, can we go outside? So, there are things you as a music educator will have control over, and there will be things you will need help with. Being able to go to your Supervisor, your Principal, your Superintendent and say, ‘yes, we can have this program, but we need your help to have an appropriate environment for us to be able to successfully do this.’ It’s a different kind of advocacy. In this instance your using advocacy to ensuring proper conditions for you to be able to run your program. I think those are new challenges for our educators. First to be informed on what are the mitigation strategies, then what are the ones you have control over and can address, and finally what are the ones you cannot necessarily control and need help with. Then, be willing to ask for the help. DA: Bob, what advice can you share for those music educators who are perhaps a little less self-motivated with their individual advocacy and they may not have an arts leader in their district? What are the possible steps those educators can take in their schools/districts to advocate for their programs and students? BM: I think it’s always best to advocate for your program using supporting information, data, and facts. Use the documentation that we’ve put out. The September Ready report is full of information on how to provide instruction in the variety of scenarios that may play out for us: in school with restrictions, a hybrid model, and completely remote. Also, 20
OCTOBER 2020
