Oregon Arts Education Congress

Oregon Arts Education Congress

On the second of November, I attended the second annual Oregon Arts Education Congress at the World Forestry Center, sponsored by the Right Brain Initiative. Approximately 160 artists, educators, and advocates participated. Guests from around the area were presented with a wide range of topics on the Arts in education in our state. Speakers included state representatives Jefferson Smith and Chris Harker, Ron Paul the chair of the Oregon Arts Commission, Deb Vaughn the coordinator for Arts Education at the Oregon Arts Commission, and others.

Several workshops were held throughout the day including a Hot Topics opener, where each table gathered to discuss an issue on a particular area of arts education. My group was pre-service art educators discussing how we can increase the perceived value of arts in the curriculum. Much of the conversation centered around integrating the arts into other core curriculum areas, which is great on one hand but made many of us nervous that that will be all there is for art. We concluded we needed two main focuses: getting the parents to recognize the value and thus demanding more art, and getting the people in charge of the money and decisions to see that a strong arts education builds a strong student. This was prefaced with the understanding that, while there are many studies that reflect the positive impact art can have on other academic areas; art for art’s sake should be the battle call.

Another focus was on building a statewide online learning community. Our task here was to discuss what features we wanted to see in the website/interactive e-community. We were encouraged to visit and contribute to the site. Much of what was being discussed in the small groups in the room through out the day was being rapidly put on the site by a core of grad student from (I think) OSU. This gave an immediate infusion of the content of the congress to the site making it possible for those who were not present to get a sense of the issues being discussed. If I have my notes correct, this is Artsjournal.com.

We had a percussion workshop that was extremely effective. Guests had been asked to bring in a found object to create percussion and something to strike it with. Under the tutelage of Brett Paschal, Instructor of Percussion at Lewis and Clark College, we performed, among other things, a collaborative Junkanoo which raised the roof and sounded amazing. I was quite impressed with his ability to transform us into a musical ensemble in 20 minutes.

One of the more poignant items was a reading of the Oregon Declaration of Creative Rights: The Declaration of the Myriad Oregon Friends of the Young”, written by Kim Stafford in 2009. A copy can be downloaded at www.oregonartseducationcongress.org. I will bring in some copies to class if people would like to see it in person. One section of it reads: “We hold early Creative Experience to be indelible, and that all children need be offered, equally and abundantly, certain Rights that secure access to the formative Encounters of Art-and that among these are making original Work, savoring creative Practice, and the Pursuit of one’s own generous Vision and articulate Voice.” A second reading was done later in the day with physical interpretations by two theatre people.

Several briefings were held throughout the day. I attended one given by NASAA (Nat’l Assembly of State Art Agencies) researcher Sarah Collins. She addressed what other states are doing for art in their schools and how states and teachers can connect and share.
A second briefing I attended was presented by Michael Fridley, Arts Specialist at Oregon Department of Education. He discussed curriculum standards for art and how they are up for review and the outline of that process. He expressed how we must “not go for the maximum but for the optimum.”

Our final destination was the Children’s Museum where we were free to explore and create, have a glass of wine and appetizers, and listen to one of several presentations. I chose to attend one given by Steve, the math and science teacher at the Opal School which is housed on the Children’s Museum site. It was fascination to hear about the free and creative approach to learning at Opal. Students are allowed to use power tools (with training and supervision) to create and build. They are encouraged to learn by making their own discoveries and mistakes. There is clearly an enthusiasm about learning that is rare among students. (Two Opal students happen to live across from me and are friends of my 11 year old son) If only all schools had an Opal philosophy.

few phrases that really caught my attention were:
“Things that fire together, wire together.”
“Visual Literacy” term commonly used in Australia regarding visual arts in curriculum
“The best communicators are those who can communicate using a variety of methods.”
“Good people doing good things for no good reason”
“We want Oregon to be the Athens” (as opposed to the Sparta)
“Not “Can you follow the directions and make this” but “What can I make from these materials?””
“How do we prepare children for a future we can’t imagine?”

A few items mentioned that I want to look into include:
Book: The Whole New Mind
Book: Three Cups of Tea
“Wordle” visual mapping
HOT Schools (Higher Order of Thinking
Whole Schools
Tinkeringschool.com

I feel that the Congress was an excellent opportunity for people concerned with the arts and art education to come together in a constructive, productive way. As a future art educator, I was keenly interested to learn what was going on in the world of arts education in Oregon and am glad I had the opportunity to attend. I encourage each of you to seek out and attend next year’s Congress.

Ida Galash