The
Lincoln Center Summer Institute: Bravo & Encore
By Joan Baum
Sometimes
it’s the little word that makes the difference. In the matter
of the Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) Arts in Education program,
the key to understanding how this particular school-arts collaboration
differs from all other programs that supplement, augment, and
enrich learning lies in the preposition “in” as opposed to the
conjunction “and.” Where other fine programs also serve to bring
the arts into closer play with the curriculum, LCI wants the arts
all the arts to be integral and inseparable from teaching
and learning. In this sense, among others, LCI directly affects
teachers and teaching in a way that, in the words of LCI Executive
Director Scott Noppe-Brandon, makes it “unique.” For starters,
he points out, the 25-year old program has a philosophy Aesthetic
Inquiry and a philosopher Maxine Greene behind it. For another,
the program’s integrative approach to the arts, from pre-service
teacher education through Focus School and Partnership School
collaborations, insures that philosophy gets practically grounded
as experiential learning. And specifically grounded, LCI may be
the only arts-in-education program to center study on a specific
work of art, whether in dance, theatre, museum art, or music,
and then challenge teachers to draw out general principles about
how the arts affect teaching. There is also the fact that LCI
has prestigious affiliations in its collaborative efforts Lincoln
Center - not to mention this summer’s additional coup: partnering
with England’s Royal National Theatre and the American Crafts
Museum. The July 8-19 session, part of LCI’s annual Professional
Development series, coincides with performances at Lincoln Center,
including a birthday concert with the New York Philharmonic for
Maestro Kurt Masur, and The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Dance
and the Art of Animation.” Not to mention workshops on photography,
poetry, and teaching students with special needs.
The
history of LCI tells much about its purpose, which is essentially
to make the arts a model for learning in general, not an add-on
but an integral part of curricula. Conceived from an idea proposed
many years ago by a former dean of Juilliard, that performances
to be truly appreciated needed an education context, the idea,
now shaped in light of Aesthetic Education, prompted studies into
the role of imagination in professional life, no matter what the
profession. Soon business and science leaders started holding
conferences on the idea, then town meetings, and the idea expanded
directly into the schools. “We don’t get into discussions of standards
or high-stakes testing,” Noppe-Brandon, says. The focus is on
the depth and breadth of the arts in the curriculum, on realizing
the theory of Aesthetic Education for grades K-12. Maxine Greene,
LCI’s philosopher-in-residence, is the “soul” of the program,
guiding, checking, being the honest broker on how we “operationalize”
theideas, Noppe-Brandon says. At the heart of the program is the
hallmark of progressive education. As the LCI website proclaims,
“Each individual child as well as adult has the capacity to
respond to any given work of art in ways that challenge preconceived
notions, stimulate fresh insights, and encourage deeper understandings.
Without the limitations imposed by ‘right’ or ‘wrong’answers,
this process of response builds cognitive abilities in powerful,
fundamental ways.”
How do schools find out about LCI? “Word of mouth,” Noppe-Brandon
says, though he admits that he’d like to have a better presence
in the high schools. Still, there’s a waiting list for the lower
grades. The majority of participating institutions are public
schools, and the Director keeps careful watch on the kind of school
that applies, its level and location. Every effort is made to
represent diversity, he notes. Collaboration comes in basically
two forms: Partnership Schools and Focus Schools. The former,
now numbering 140 (Elementary, Middle and High Schools) and involving
65-70 percent of the faculty, allow individual teachers to participate
in the Institute’s various programs and creatively design their
own curricula, draw up their own budget, establish their own procedures
for testing, and provide for additional coverage. In Focus Schools,
now numbering 11, the Institute works one on one with every student
in the school over a period of five years.
The
beauty of the overall LCI idea, Scott says, is that 85 percent
of the participating teachers are not involved in arts education.
Not all artists, he points out, are good teachers. His own background,
he pointed out, was a slow but inevitable movement from dancer
to certified arts education teacher, to artist-in-residence, to
administrator, a shift that expanded his roles, rather thancausing
him to abandon one for another.He is now involved with five CUNY
colleges and some private institutions, including the Bank Street
College of Education, Fordham University, and Teachers College,
promoting different kinds of collaborative programs, from loose
arrangements for individual teachers (Bank Street) to sequential
course models (Lehman) .
So, does LCI work? Just ask Anna Marie Carrillo, Principal of
P.S. 116 in District 2. She is nothing if not rhapsodic about
the program, moving from adjectival hyperbole to more adjectival
hyperbole. “Wonderful,” she says, “we are all so very happy,”
and by “we” she means, not just administrators but teachers, students
and especially parents, for whom the program has been particularly
“inspirational.” One innovation it has inspired, she says, has
been Museum Night, when parents and children together with teachers
go to a museum to study a particular art work. The quality of
the discussion, she reports, is “absolutely amazing.”
This summer LCI is instituting new repertory and institutional
partnerships for educators, with Arts Coordinators Workshops,
and fabulous dance and theatre performances, including an LCI
co-commissioned presentation, “Shadow’s Child,” performed by the
Urban Bush Women and National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique;
“Srishti,” a program of traditional Indian dance; “As If the Past
Were Listening,” Latino folktales; “The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies,”
performed by New York Theatre Ballet; Poulenc’s “Piano and Wind”;
“Ghost Lovers,” a comic Chinese opera; and the Royal National
Theatre production of “The Tempest.” #
For
more information about LCI, access the website or call (212) 875-5535.
Education
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