11 minute read
Access to High Quality Arts Education
BY JOANIE HARMON
As a K–12 dance instructor, consultant for dance and art teachers’ professional development, and doctoral candidate in the UCLA Department of Education, Lindsay Lindberg discusses the beneficial impacts of Prop. 28 on schools, educators, and students.
Lindsay Lindberg’s experiences as a graduate student researcher at UCLA have led her to discover many connections between the sciences and the arts, dance in particular. The projects she has taken part in have varied, from designing computer science and arts curriculum for high school students, to helping elementary students explore the states of matter in a mixed-reality environment, to supporting research on a coding and art summer camp. While STEM and STEAM have been elements in Lindberg’s work, art—dance in particular—was always at the foundation of it. Today, as president-elect of the California Dance Education Association, Lindberg (’10, B.A., World Arts and Cultures/Dance) looks forward with her teaching colleagues to the advent of a new era of arts education statewide after the passing of Proposition 28.
On her way to becoming a double Bruin, Lindberg is currently completing her Ph.D. in Urban Schooling at Ed&IS. She earned her master of arts degree in dance education at New York University. She has served as a lecturer in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, teaching and assisting with a variety of courses including an introduction to arts education, food and politics, and community engagement through the arts. In addition, Lindberg supported dancers and education students to develop Creative-Movement-based lesson plans for students at UCLA Lab School and across LAUSD. She has also served as program coordinator for the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program at UCLA.
On her way to becoming a double Bruin, Lindberg is currently completing her Ph.D. in Urban Schooling at Ed&IS. She earned her master of arts degree in dance education at New York University. She has served as a lecturer in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, teaching and assisting with a variety of courses including an introduction to arts education, food and politics, and community engagement through the arts. In addition, Lindberg supported dancers and education students to develop Creative-Movement-based lesson plans for students at UCLA Lab School and across LAUSD. She has also served as program coordinator for the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program at UCLA.
Among Lindberg’s awards are the UCLA Graduate Student Summer Research Mentorship Award (2019); the Elwood Zillgitt and Mildred Finney Scholarship (2017–18); and the New York University Steinhardt Distinguished Service Award in Dance Education (2012).
Lindberg, a former K–12 dance educator, consultant, and facilitator of numerous professional development workshops for teachers, discusses her hopes that Prop. 28 will afford more support and full-time arts educators across California; alleviate the extra burden upon classroom teachers to give their students a minimum level of arts education; and further social justice in public education by affording all students life-changing experiences in the arts.
Most of the money has to be spent on paying teachers and so the excitement is around making sure we have enough qualified and trained educators who can enter the workforce and not only be beautiful artists, but who will engage students in meaningful ways.
Ed&IS Magazine: How will Prop. 28 enhance the profession for K–12 dance educators and for arts educators in general?
LINDSAY LINDBERG: In addition to being a doctoral candidate at UCLA, I’m president-elect of the California Dance Education Association, and so I work with and represent dance educators from across the state. We’re obviously really excited about Prop. 28. One of the research participants from my dissertation works at a public high school, grades 9–12. There are about 2,000 students, and her school is going to get $200,000 a year from Prop 28. that will be divided up between the art forms.
Most of the money has to be spent on paying teachers and so the excitement is around making sure we have enough qualified and trained educators who can enter the workforce and not only be beautiful artists, but who will engage students in meaningful ways. That means inquiry-based learning experiences through dance [with] creative experiences, making sure that [students] have choreographic experience, not just performing the steps that the teacher teaches; and having an opportunity to develop a set of skills through dance that can translate beyond the dance classroom.
What I think is challenging for school districts is that right now, nobody really knows how to get the money. It passed and it was really exciting. And then [teachers] are asking, “What do we do?” Many of the dance educators we’re talking to are reaching out to the California Dance Education Association [asking], “How do I tell my administrators that this money is for me? Or, this money [can be used] to hire another dance teacher.”
There are a lot of job openings, but it’s kind of stressful, because for many years there hasn’t been really a viable way to make a living wage as an artist, as an arts educator especially. It’s kind of a crunch to make sure that there are qualified educators who are able and interested in being teachers in schools.
Ed&IS: How can universities prepare a new workforce of arts educators for California’s schools?
LINDBERG: I think universities like UCLA and other institutions of research can play a role in developing programs that train artists to be educators. There is a teaching artist track through the VAPAE program (Visual and Performing Arts Education at UCLA), developing working artists with a creative practice that’s meaningful to them, and teaching that in a school. But very few teaching artists have been able to make a living wage having full time jobs. This Prop. 28 funding allows that to be more of a possibility. But, we have to get the word out. Just because you’re an artist, it doesn’t mean that you have the skills to teach. Research universities offering programs, credentialing programs for visual art, for dance, for theater—UCLA already has one for music—is a really important step.
We have generations of classroom educators who have been teaching for many years, and they grew up without any arts education in their own K–12 experience. We have been unfairly expecting these folks who have had no introduction to the arts to suddenly introduce their students to the arts in a meaningful way—not making paper hand turkeys for Thanksgiving and doing simple crafts.
Prop. 28 invites an historic investment in the arts in California schools and having these funds with which to hire qualified arts educators to teach in schools, gives us as a state a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create ongoing, artsrich experiences for K–12 youth in public schools.
This isn’t the reality yet, but I hope that universities will be able to get some of the Prop. 28 funding. Right now, it’s for K–12 and that’s really important. But universities are also going to play a pivotal role in training and preparing educators, and some already are. Most state universities are the ones who are stepping up—Cal State East Bay had the first dance credential. But I really think the research [institutions] play an important role … leading the way in what it looks like to have well-trained and prepared arts educators who believe in equity and believe that the arts are a place where young people and educators can transform education. Using research-backed methods to prepare arts educators is essential.
Ed&IS: How will Prop. 28 help non-arts educators and school culture?
LINDBERG: We’re asking too much of teachers. I see it lightening their load by providing trained arts educators to have a stable, consistent presence in a school. We see the effect that the presence of arts has on students, on attendance, on community culture, on socialemotional learning. The presence of an art teacher, dance teacher, or theater teacher has shown that school culture improves. That’s helpful for non-art teachers, and everyone working and learning at the school.
I help train teachers in Pasadena Unified School District. I teach professional development on how elementary teachers can integrate visual art and dance into their day, and it’s overwhelming. They do a great job. It’s hard work, and they’re already doing so much. So, the introduction of not just itinerant dance teachers, but hopefully full-time dance teachers and other arts educators working in one school, can lighten the load of the classroom teachers and increase school morale, for the faculty as well.
Ed&IS: Why do you think California’s voters recognized now that something must be done about statewide arts education?
LINDBERG: One of the exciting things about Prop. 28 is that the voters have spoken. Something that I’ve heard is that perhaps an older generation is concerned that without training young people to be artists, the arts will disappear.
Artists are generating content, creating things that entertain us, make us question ourselves, our role in the world. That is one of the roles of the artist, to entertain, to challenge. One of the functions of art is to hold up a mirror to society, to see what’s happening; to challenge what’s happening, and to imagine a more just future.
The arts play a huge role in our lives. There is also a huge creative economy in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. We’ve seen this with the strikes—there’s an economic reason to keep this kind of engine and education running. We need people not only onstage, but backstage. We need directors, we need stage producers, we need lighting designers.
I think there are some folks who think, “Oh, my granddaughter loves her dance class—why would I not vote to support something that brings joy and goodness to our lives, in a climate that’s so dark?” We’re facing ecological disasters every week, social challenges. The arts can be a spark of joy within a dark landscape.
And, I want to believe that people see it as an issue of equity. It’s an issue of social justice. Access to high quality arts education is something that all students need. California is one of the richest states, and the fact that we haven’t been offering sequential high-quality arts education across disciplines to people who go to public schools is a travesty. I don’t think people realize that public K–12 schools are often the only place that young people are exposed to the arts. Without access to high quality arts education, we have generations growing up without these tools to make sense of the world, to understand themselves, and to be the creative critical thinkers that we need for the future.
Ed&IS: What are your greatest hopes for the students who will ultimately benefit from Prop. 28?
LINDBERG: There are so many ways to argue the importance of art. One is to train to be a professional artist. Students say, “I’m going to be an artist. I want to have my piece at the Hammer Museum, at the Fowler, at the Met.” In the VAPAE program, I taught a course in an arts education teaching sequence. We had students who are pre-med, and they say, “I’m going to be a doctor, but I love art.” We had students who are undergraduate education majors who said, “When I grew up, I had this art teacher who really changed my life. I want to provide that experience.”
So, in one classroom, we get a whole swath from across campus: art majors, dance majors, psychology and biology majors, who are all drawn to the arts. These were high achieving high schoolers. They get to college, and some of them have had art education, but some haven’t. And, consistently at the end, these courses are transformational. They say, “You know, I never had a class where I knew everybody’s name.” Or, they say, “I’ve never had the opportunity to reflect on who I am, who I want to be.” Ultimately, I hope that young people are exposed to the arts in ways that feel meaningful to them. I’m hopeful that the passage of Prop. 28 can serve as a catalyst for a paradigm shift in education, that brings us closer to the arts being central to our culture and schooling system.
I don’t think people realize that public K–12 schools are often the only place that young people are exposed to the arts. Without access to high quality arts education, we have generations growing up without these tools to make sense of the world, to understand themselves, and to be the creative critical thinkers that we need for the future.
