the idea: talk to students on their level about their education

I spent an incredible day the national forum held by the Arts Education Partnership.  In the fall I was a fellow for their database, ArtsEdSearch, where I found and summarized quantitative research articles about arts education outcomes.  Part of that fellowship was the incredible opportunity to attend this conference.

I’m attempting to tweet the conference, although I’ve never done that before, so if you’re interested the information is there, but tonight I want to post an idea I had during the first few hours of the conference that has been battling with my attention for the rest of the day.

At an artist of art educators, administrators, policy-makers, advocates, etc. etc. I noticed that conversations about education almost always take place between adults.  We direct our ideas about education towards teachers and parents but ignore a vital player: the students themselves.

My idea for today, which stems from the many ideas I’ve had around my upcoming book Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something, is to talk to students on their level about their education.  One of the problems with our current education system is that it is often so disconnected from the daily lives of the students.  We think that we’re starting our lives when we graduate high school/college.  But what type of message does that sentiment send?  It tells us that to be a student isn’t to be alive yet, isn’t to be a real person yet.

How awful.

Instead, we should be talking to our students about education and we should teach them how to take charge of their minds, how to have high expectations for themselves that make them get the most of education.

There are so many kids who hate school.  I was never one of those.  I loved learning, I still do.  But while all these incredible people are making all these incredible contributions to the field of arts education, plenty of our students still don’t see the point, or even if they do they just don’t give a shit.  Because no one has ever sat down to talk to them about it.