good stuff...

http://on.ted.com/Watts

Storme Webber's Improbable Beautiful

Storme Webber’s Improbable Beautiful

Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theater

http://redeaglesoaring.org/productions-2

1. How long have you been a teaching artist?

All my life. Professionally, over the past twenty years.

2. What discipline(s) do you teach?

Primarily creative writing/poetry - from an interdisciplinary place incorporating visual art, music, movement, meditation & performance.

3. Describe the setting(s) in which you teach.

University of Washington -Young Writers Workshop- middle school summer camp 2 week sessions.

Arts Corps. - After school at low-income housing developments. Also at secure facilities for youth involved with juvenile justice system.

Prisons- men’s and women’s.

1.     Hedge brook – women writers retreat on Whidbey Island

2.     Vashon Island Poetry Festival

3.     Chuckanut Writers Conference

4.     NYC public schools

5.     NYC shelters

Varies…

4. What funding source(s) support you as a teaching artist?

nonprofits, barter, grants, scholarships and patrons of the arts.

5.     Who shaped your initial thinking about teaching art?

The experience of being saved by art as a child.

6. Describe the relationship between your personal art practice and your art teaching?

Ideally in synch, expressing the powerful transformative nature of art.

7. How has your training and/or other life experiences benefited your teaching?

Immeasurably, by telling  & showing me how mighty creativity  is.

8. What are the biggest challenges you face as a teaching artist?

Financial support.

9. What are the unexpected rewards of being a teaching artist?

Inspiration in seeing others especially youth & elders empowered & inspired.

10. What advice do you have for other artists interested in teaching?

Training is helpful, and community with other teaching artists.

11. What is your hope for the future of arts education?

I hope that it is expanded & placed everywhere that education is, and that it is funded so that TA s will be fairly paid (min $50/hr)

Please share one anecdote of a memorable Teaching Artist experience.

Seeing someone who seemed impervious to the very idea of creative effort, catch ahold of an impetus, write some truth about their life, and be subtly amazed.

*About the photo: 

This was an outstandingly wonderful experience- I also co directed, chose music & dramaturged, & dressed the cast in period wardrobe.

The challenge was to imbue them with the revolutionary spirit of the 60s. This occupation followed Alcatraz & was inspired by the emerging AIM activism. In the end it happened, and the play debuted at Daybreak Star itself- the cultural center created by what happened in the play! on Palm Sunday. Resurrection City was the name given to the encampment. Several elder activists were present and appreciated the work. For me it was a powerful affirmation of the transformative nature of storytelling and activist history. Truly a highlight of the journey thus far.

http://redeaglesoaring.org/productions-2

http://www.sitespecificarts.org/projects/resurrection-city

http://radsearem.wordpress.com/tag/fort-lawton/

https://www.facebook.com/Red.Eagle.Soaring?fref=ts

I just returned from www.michfest.com where I performed & debuted  my new CD of poetry/ stories & vocals called "Blues Divine". Available from me: storme.webber@goddard.edu

Improbable Beautiful Gratitude

Thanks teaching artists who have participated in the questionnaire so far.  
I'm honored by your willingness to share. A lot of new folks have sent in responses. I look forward to posting your thoughts and work in the future. 

Enjoy this collaboration between Tanya Davis and Andre Dorfman.

Trena Noval’s Improbable Beautiful

"Improbable Beautiful"

The Teaching Artist Questionnaire

1. How long have you been a teaching artist?

I have been teaching art things and thinking for almost 25 years (yikes that makes me old!)

2. What discipline(s) do you teach?

Community arts, public arts and design thinking, Graduate Advisory, Teaching and Creative Practice, Curriculum Design, and other things from time to time includng Stop Motion Animation. I teach college, Graduate students and support classroom teachers

3. Describe the setting(s) in which you teach.

College and with teachers in K-12 settings, Also special projects with kids as well but all project base learning in collaboration with classroom teachers - not a classroom art teacher

4. Who shaped your initial thinking about teaching art?

It was a spontaneous thing when I got out of college and was looking for a job years ago and was offered a job to teach middle school art at a private school - did not need a credential so decided to try it out!

5. Describe the relationship between your personal art practice and your art teaching?

It seem mostly seamless to me - they both feed and have become an integral part of each other! For me my teaching is part of my creative practice.

6. How do you sustain your art while teaching?

It is hard but I work on more project based stuff so I usually do the work when the project is going and then can have longer break in my work until another project starts but I am always doing something it seems - writing or some kind of creative practice...reading things that peak my interest, research etc...

7. What training in the arts and/or education have you had?

BFA and MFA and years of practice and other professional development through collaboration and collective thinking

8. What are the biggest challenges you face as a teaching artist?

Funding, job security, health insurance, exhaustion

9. What are the unexpected rewards of being a teaching artist?

Living and working a creative life, making art and thinking through creative lenses to make a difference in others and in the world, working with a rich engaging community of other artists and educators!

10. What advice do you have for other artists interested in teaching?

Go for it but find balance and set limits around pay and time commitments so that you have a balanced life, become engaged in contemporary art practice and keep making room for your own creative thinking and work.

Please share one anecdote of a memorable Teaching Artist experience or your favorite resources for lessons.

Oh my so many hard to sort it out right now - I love the project zero stuff for teaching. We are so lucky we live in a time when there are so many rich resources online and easy ways for us to connect and share.

http://www.pz.harvard.edu/

Jimmy Fallon's Improbable Beautiful

OK so Jimmy Fallon didn't fill out the teaching artist questionnaire but I'm sure he would if I asked!
He is a teaching artist by my (loose) definition!

This is just pure fun. I feel I can justify putting on the blog because they are using classroom instruments, after all.
ENJOY!
Hey, hey, HEY!

Jimmy Fallon, Robin Thicke & The Roots "Blurred Lines"

 You know you love the banana shaker!

Esther Hilsenrad's Improbable Beautiful

“Improbable Beautiful”

The Teaching Artist Questionnaire

1. How long have you been a teaching artist?

My first experience as a teaching artist was in 2006. As a high school History teacher I started co-teaching an after school art class.

Later that year, I started working as a teaching artist full time through museum work.

So, I was a teaching artist for 4 years. (I am not currently teaching art.)

2. What discipline(s) do you teach?

Currently, I teach English language at the University level in Korea, but prior to that I have taught pre-school, pre-school art, art, English writing/literature and World History.

3. Describe the setting(s) in which you teach.

Currently, I teach in a university in Seoul, South Korea.

As a teaching artist I last worked in a private school in Korea teaching 3-6 year olds art in classes of about 10 children. And prior to that I was teaching art through a museum, facilitating on-site fieldtrips, family drop-in programs and summer camp programs, as well as teaching art offsite in after school programs.

4. Who shaped your initial thinking about teaching art?

I am really not sure. I have always loved making art and crafting has been my hobby since I was a small child. I’ve also always loved teaching and so in some ways those two passions melded naturally. Both my parents are teachers and artists, and my older brothers are artists as well- so I am sure that has influenced me consciously and subconsciously.

5. Describe the relationship between your personal art practice and your art teaching?

I think the two feed each other. My experimentations with art making that occur while I am teaching seep into my personal art practice and the skills that I acquire while making my own art inform my teaching.

6. How do you sustain your art while teaching?

As best as I can. I try to make time for personal art making, but realistically I make art only once or twice a month.

7. What training in the arts and/or education have you had?

I have a lot of self-teaching, as well as familial influences. Art was always my elective choice in middle and high school. And at the age of 26 I took one semester at California College of Art and another at Laney College- where I mostly studied drawing and painting.

8. What are the biggest challenges you face as a teaching artist?

I think the biggest challenges I have faced have come from push back from the community. Either young people who lack familiarity or confidence with art making, or adults who don’t give students the space or freedom to explore their own creativity.

9. What are the unexpected rewards of being a teaching artist?

The smiles on young artists’ faces and the surprising lessons I learn when a students explores art in a way I had never seen or thought of before.

10. What advice do you have for other artists interested in teaching?

I think it’s a wonderful field that is rewarding in all ways other than financial.

Please share one anecdote of a memorable Teaching Artist experience.

A few years ago I was teaching in a summer camp at MOCHA. I was working with children 5-11 years old. We had started a new project and one of the youngest children in the camp, Khalil, was just not starting. The work period was almost over and I had nudged him to get started a few times already. I really thought he was just procrastinating and/or tired of thinking about art as he had been attending the week-long camps for the entire summer. Eventually he began and his idea was creative and original and I came over to talk to him. He told me I shouldn’t have rushed him. He said he had had to think about what he wanted to make. He couldn’t start until he was ready. I think it was a lesson about the art making process. He was waiting for his inspiration and my nudging was not going to help it come along.

A kids' view on why Art in school is important.

http://youtu.be/6M7ST6Vm0p4

Enjoy this really cool video on art and creativity from the kid perspective.

The video comes from TakePart a website full for social action on many issues including Education. The site has lots of informative articles and thought provoking videos.

http://www.takepart.com/education