Which Creativity Lab and Workshops are you taking and way?

What questions about Habits of Mind do you have?

What do you hope to learn about Habits of Mind?

As with many people for whom July means fireworks, mosquito bites and ESP, I’ve been overwhelmed with wrapping up the school year and getting ready for this get-together. The amazing thing is that with all the thought and preparation that I’d done leading up to this, I’m still finding that I have to step up my game. This isn’t exactly a shock for me or anyone who’s heard me go on and on for the last couple of months. Indeed, it’s exhilarating and slightly exhausting and the impetus I need to take my arts education experience to the next level.

The focus of Summer Seminar 2008 is Habits of Mind, which was codified by Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick in a four-book series. Those who attended last year remember Eric Booth’s exciting talk about his own reworking of that and other theories that he calls Habits of Mind of Creative Engagement. Faculty and Fellows (I am proudly serving as one of the latter) have been asked to incorporate it into their work here. So many on the list hit home when I think about what I want to achieve as an artist and educator, including ‘listening with understanding and empathy‘ and ‘responding with wonderment and awe‘.

It was two other Habits, however, that have really hit me the hardest this past week. The one bandied about at today’s meeting of Faculty and Fellows was ‘persisting‘. Is that because it’s the shortest one? It’s a one-word Habit that says it all. Or is it because no one survives in the arts without having a giant helping of it? Maybe it’s because, as educators, it’s the one tool in our toolkit that we have left after all others have failed us. I believe that the answer is, quite simply, yes. When faced with a serious shortage of supplies for my drumming workshop, my friend and colleague helped me produce them (hence the photo of Home Depot’s Mr. July). He helped me by demonstrating what persistence looked like at that particular junction. As if that wasn’t enough, he also put it another way - ‘you get out of it what you put in to it’.        

The other Habit is the one that I’ve identified as the reason why I love making music so much. It’s evident in almost every great endeavor I’ve ever undertaken in my life, personally and professionally. I’ve sometimes seen it in the most fleeting of my interactions and is always present in the deepest of my friendships. It was all over the room today at our meeting. The Habit, ‘working well with others‘, is partially defined as a ‘commitment to collaboration’. This is apparent in every gorgeous performance of a Mozart symphony, every loving marriage and in every great educator’s relationship with their students.

Not a bad thing to strive for.

Sometimes being a beginner is cause for celebration because we don’t have to prove squat and we have everything to gain. At other times, beginnerhood feels uncomfortable if we worry that others in the group seem to have ‘more’ than we do… Do we look foolish? Will others have patience with us? Can we feel smart if we don’t know or understand something that others already seem to? How come asking a question feels less safe/acceptable than giving an answer does? When did learning become so fraught with stakes?

So, the problem I’m currently obsessed with is: When and why does the state of being a beginner, first-timer, newbie, etc. become a negative rather than a positive? How can we cultivate positive states and lessen dispiriting negative states in ourselves and others when we’re in new learning situations?

I’m excited by environments where question-asking and ‘not knowing’ is a welcomed means of dialogue rather than a pathway toward feeling ignorant. Anyone have thoughts about cultivating these group learning states and how our habits of evaluation are related to our Learning selves and Critical selves?

There are great parallels here to Summer Seminar. How do we jump into this community and this work – especially if it’s the first time? I’ve been teaching an arts integration course to pre-service teachers this month and have been musing a lot about the ideas of ‘first time’ and ‘new’. This work is exhilarating and this work can also be scary. How, as participants and/or facilitators do we ride that edge? How do we support our own and others’ feelings of excitement around new firsts without triggering feelings of worry or self-judgment?

As educators, it is critically important to develop the capacity to evaluate what is right in front of us. You might say it is one of our strongest ‘skill sets’ […whoops, my first attempt at the previous sentence gave me the typo, ‘kill sets’, which is a mistake that points me in exactly the direction that I was intending to go…] Our evaluation habits that are so essential in the work of education can quickly become ‘kill sets’ that get in the way of the learning process.

Learning takes time, space, and a variety of entry modes. If we jump into our evaluation habits before allowing time for learning, the focus can move toward judgment and away from development. How to manage this? Protected time. While we certainly want to develop our capacity for judgment, we don’t want to do so at the expense of relaxed inquiry stance. If we cannot control our evaluation habits, then they control us by turning into negative habits of self-judgment.

Here is what I ultimately want to say about Summer Seminar and this work in general: Come and play with us. Practice entering a supportive space of inquiry where we are all learners, all riding that tricky edge of exhilaration and fear together. One way to that state of ‘first-time kissing mode’ is to simply dive in. The other way is to observe habits. Summer Seminar is good for noticing how and when our judgment capacities morph into ‘first-time killer mode’, then learning how to adjust or smack ‘em back as needed. The balance of ‘kissing’ and ‘killing’ takes practice; our time together provides that learning space.

As I told my soon-to-be-great-friend Liz Weil (I am always hopeful, always positive), I was so excited and honored to be asked to be a guest blogger, that I totally forgot to say yes. Then there was that whole second stage which included Groucho Marx’s comment running through my head that basically calls into question the type of club that would have me as a member. Then, defying the Kubler-Ross model, I skipped anger and depression and went right into bargaining. ‘Well…’, I thought, ‘…people are interested in how this Irish-looking, Hispanic guy from Hoboken, New Jersey got into playing taiko’. Hopefully, if you take my creativity lab during Summer Seminar ‘08 and/or get to hear a taiko (Japanese drum) performance, you’ll be as hooked as I was. So my next step will be to tie in this art form with Summer Seminar and its focus of ‘habits of the creative mind’.

It’s been said that the boundaries of a Japanese village were determined by how far the sound of the village drum could carry. That speaks worlds to me, including and especially the thought of art and it’s impact, even creation, of community. Of course, the situation now is that we live in an age where I can type something here and that very same village in Japan (with the help of wireless towers) can read it almost immediately. Where does art lie in these times in relation to community? Is it in danger of being less relevant or does the immediacy of our lives demand more of it? It would be great to hear your thoughts about this. If you want to learn more about taiko, click here for a book called The Way of Taiko or click here for CDs of a great taiko performance group, Kodo.

I hope to see you at Summer Seminar ‘08. If we do chat and you’re interested, ask me about another experience of art and community I had in Japan. That one might make me tear up, but I won’t mind telling you about it, I promise. Best!

But here’s something that has occurred to me lately; something that would be good to enter into the general arts-in-ed conversation.  I hope you’ll agree.  Have you noticed that the stars seem to be slowly lining up to improve the reception for our work in schools?  It seems to me that there are a number of seemingly providential things orchestrating themselves on behalf of what we do. 

As a start I’ll offer some recent publications which, because they’ve been around long enough by now, are filtering down and beginning to have an impact on people’s thinking.  These books have singled out current U.S. educational practice for failing to properly guide student learning toward meeting the needs of the 21st century!   I refer to these as the “mind trilogy” for, you will note, obvious reasons.   These books are having an impact and you can help that along by adding them to your advocacy conversations.   

  Out of Our Minds by Sir Ken Robinson (you’ve seen the video, now read the book!).  The book (2001) points out that current educational practice stressing numeracy and literacy squeezes out opportunities to provide experiences for students in possibly even more important 21st century skills – innovation, imagination and creativity!  This is, of course, what we do!!  Go Arts-in-Education!  Go ESP!  Go Sir Ken!

 Five Minds for the Future, Howard Gardner’s recent addition to the conversation (2006) suggests that today’s accelerating rate of globalization, easy access to vast amounts of information, rapid advances in science and technology, etc. call for a new way of learning.  He suggests that the most thoroughly equipped 21st century learner needs to nurture the following:  a disciplinary mind, a synthesizing mind, a creating mind, a respectful mind and an ethical mind.  Do you see how we fit into all of these categories? 

Finally, Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind (2005) suggests that we have moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age, from there to the information age and that we are now in what he calls the “conceptual age.”  He suggests that the demands of the age are being shaped by three A’s – Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce), Asia (everything that can be outsourced, is) and Automation (computers, robotics, etc. – we no longer have to do “hard work”).   This guy is not an academic, he is writing for an audience of business people – which, of course, also helps us.  He notes that the “competitive difference” will come from: (drum roll please) CREATIVITY!!   Can I have an AHA??!!

My question to you is:  have you noticed any other things like this on a national or state level?  I don’t mean other book titles necessarily, but other elements that might be considered stars in our firmament that are beginning to line up?  Do you also have a sense that, however slowly, society (generally or more specifically) is beginning to feel better about what we bring to schools?  If so, please share what it is that’s making you feel that way.  Together maybe we can begin orchestrating the ingredients for society’s celebration of our work as times go on.

e-mail Meeting - November 8^th, 2007

I was reading from the Habits of Mind, Discovering & Exploring the other night and ran across the section about “Remaining Open To Continuous Learning.” Underneath it was one of my favorite Albert Einstein quotes. In fact I have it on the wall of both of my offices. “Insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I do not want to repeat word for word but I do want to highlight a couple of things from the paragraphs. In this section the authors (Costa and Kallick), state that people of intelligence never stop learning. They write that these people “are always striving for improvement, growing, learning, and modifying and improving themselves.” They also state that many of us are afraid to learn new things and feel quite comfortable with what we know.

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Each school that belongs to the BALC has formed an ALT.  It’s been really amazing and interesting to see the different things that have come out of each ALT - school art celebrations and festivals, arts professional developments, arts newsletters and teachers impacting the way that the arts are programmed within their schools.

I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on ALT meetings at each of our schools.  Given the time and the space, ALT are able to have conversations about the arts in their schools and take steps towards accomplishing their goals.  It’s been wonderful to see inspired individuals take on leadership roles, teams starting new traditions within their school and also to see administrators fully supporting their ALT’s efforts.

This leaves me believing that despite the many challenges that surround teachers, administrators, schools, Teaching Artists and arts organizations, many great things can be accomplished by people who are willing to make it happen!

How can we get more people to take the time to come together and have these conversations?  How can we further support these efforts?  What other ways can we set ALT up to be successful?

Currently as the leader of the PS/MS 95 Arts Leadership Team, we have a goal of creating an Arts Festival week to take place during the last week of May.  During this festival, we will have a chance to share the work that has been going on in the classrooms of not only integrated DreamYard class but also any class that has created an arts or arts integrated project that they would like to share.

I envision the walls of the auditorium covered in art from pre-K to 8th grade and the performances to include theatrical skits, monologues, poetry and ballroom, jazz and african dance.

The Arts Festival will be an opportunity to celebrate the creative work that has taken place throughout the year.  This is also a time for students to share their not only their process but their growth.  Last year’s festival sparked an interest in students that were not receiving any arts instruction.  Many students stopped me in the hallway to remark about how much they enjoyed the experience of seeing their fellow students’ creative process.  They also showed an interest in joining our after school programs.  Because of this, I had 50 students show up to audition for the 20 spaces that were available for the after school drama club.

There was a hitch in last year’s festival when it came to the theater pieces being heard because to my knowledge there were only hand-held microphones.  Also, one of the unfortunate realities when working in an elementary school auditorium is that there is no wing-space.  So my question to you would be… How can I overcome those obstacles for this year’s festival?

One ALT initiative that is underway at 95 is planning and preparation for our upcoming professional development.  Currently, there are 15 arts partnerships at 95 and several teachers without partnerships who want to more actively integrate the arts into their curriculum.  On March 25th, we will hold a PD for teachers paired with teaching artists and their unpaired “buddies.”  One goal for the “bring-a-buddy” PD is to encourage more inter-grade and cross-curricular sharing.  We want to explore how sample arts activities can be applied in a multitude of settings.  How can one art activity be successfully brought into a literacy classroom OR a science classroom, an eighth grade classroom OR a first grade classroom?

In the past, it has been challenging to attract non-DY affiliated teachers to PDs, so we’re hoping our bring-a-buddy strategy will jump-start involvement by teachers who may not have attended otherwise.