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Eddy, JuniusThe Upside Down Curriculum.Alliance for Arts Education, Washington, D.C.Department of Education, Washington, DC.81

21p,John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,

Washington, DC 20566.Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.)

(120) Historical Materials (060)

MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.*Art Education; Core Curriculum; *Educational Change;Educational Improvement; Educational Objectives;Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education;

Federal Aid; Fine Arts; Interdisciplinary Approach;Program Effectiveness; *Relevance (Education)

IDENTIFIERS Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I;Elementary Secondary Education Act Title III

ABSTRACTThis document presents an updated version of a

publication that originally appeared in print in 1970. The original

document raised a number of issues and questions which, despite

notable advances, are still problematic. In this revision, marginal

notes up-date the original text with information concerningsubsequent efforts to address raised issues such as the targeting of

Federal funds and the emergence of the National Committee Arts for

the Handicapped. The paper likens the status of the arts in the

overarching curriculum to that of an uneasy guest in the house of

education. Experiments to alleviate the situation through the British

school's child-centered, open classroom approach, bring attention tothe interrelatedness of arts activities and experiences. Efforts of

educational research and development institutions, pilot projects,

and teacher education institutions contribute to the growing concept

of curriculum as an interdisciplinary experience. In addition to

,zir fundamental value as subjects in their own right, the arts are

shown to be relevant to the goals of quality education. But neither

the sorts of ultimate pay-offs found in programs dealing with the

arts in general education, nor the cost effectiveness of support for

art education programs as exemplified in the Title I-Ill programs,reveal themselves to researchers, teachers, administrators or school

board members in short time frames. Past attempts at art curriculum

reform most often looked at programs which could fit into theexisting educational stucture. But, the document suggests that thegoals of art educators are in common cause agreement with the goals

of humanist school reformers who seek to change the fundamentalnature of the school experience itself in radical, humanizing ways.

Both are involved with the social relevance of what is taught, the

processes of teaching and learning whereby what is being taught is

directly related to how it is being taught, and the emphasis uponaffective as well as cognitive goals. Questions for the future arethose of continued direction and purpose: Where to? What next?

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Junius Eddy is a freelance consultant for educa-tion and the arts now living in Rhode Island. Hewas, during the late 1960s, an arts education spe-cialist with the U.S. Office of Education. Morerecently, he has served as an advisor on artseducation to both the Ford and RockefellerFoundations. This fall McGraw-Hill will publishhis book about ways in which professional art-ists are working with severely handicappedchildren and their teachers.

k(Alliance for Arts Education

John F. Kennedy Centerfor the Performing ArtsWashington, D.C. 20566

Jack Kukuk, Director of EducationBennett Tarleton, Director,

Alliance for Arts Education

This publication is supported by the U.S.Education Department. However, the opinionsexpressed herein do not necessarily reflect theposition or policy of that agency, and no officialendorsement by the U.S. Education Departmentshould be inferred.

Reprinted with the permission of The FordFoundation.

3

Preface to the AAE Edition

I was surprised but nonetheless pleased whenJack Kukuk and Bennett Tarleton asked whetherI'd be interested in having the Alliance for ArtsEducation re-issue "The Upsidedown Curricu-lum" in some kind of up-dated version. It firstappeared as an article in the Summer 1970 issueof Cultural Affairs, a now-discontinued publica-tion of the Associated Councils of the Arts (re-cently renamed the American Council for theArts). In a somewhat expanded version, it wassubsequently re-printed by the Ford Foundationwhich, I'm told, ultimately distributed some20,000 copies nationwide.

So I couldn't help wondering what value sucha piece could have for people reading it today, tenyears later. When I first looked it over with this inmind, it seemed to me the value would be prac-tically nil, chiefly because so much had happenedin arts education during those ten years.

Reflecting on only a few of those develop-mentsmany of which incidently are now in jeop-ardy once againone would have to note:

the targeting of Federal funds specificallyfor an Arts Education (grant) Program, begin-ning in 1976;

the flowering of the Arts Endowment's Ar-tists-in-Schools Program;

the establishment of the Alliance for ArtsEducation as a national coalition for advocacyand development purposes;

the emergence of the National CommitteeArts for the Handicapped;

the appearance of the Rockefeller Panelreport, Coming to Our Senses, in 1977, and thesubsequent establishment of the Arts, Educationand Americans, Inc., to continue the panel'swork;

the development of numerous "Compre-hensive Plans (and Programs) for Arts Educa-tion" at state and local levels, and

the emergence of an "arts in general edu-cation" philosophy in scores of school systemsaround the country, and other developments toonumerous to mention.

Anyone reading "The Upsidedown Curricu-lum" today, however, might find some truth inthe old adage that 'the more things change themore they stay the same.' Because, in many ways,despite the notable advances that have occurred,a number of issues and questions raised in itspages seem still to be with us. And perhaps that'san argument of sorts for re-printing it againwith some margi.ial notes to up-date it here andthere.

On the other hand, I hope that today's readerswill bear in mind the milieau out of which thislittle booklet emerged. Despite five years of ex-traordinary activity encouraged for the firsttime by the wide-ranging Federal programs ofthe Elementary and Secondary Education Act of1965, arts educators then were only beginning tosense the Implications involved. And, for themost part, they were still talking to themselves.

If, however, you were among those concernedabout education and the ar is in 1970, chances arcyou would have been on hand in St. Louis ata major conference cr the Associated Councilsof the Arts (then, as now, known simply as"the ACA").

Though almost exclusively an arts-orientedbody, the ACA had decided that the educationalneeds and functions of the arts had, by then,become crucial enough to form the entire agendafor its 1970 national conference. Moreover, it hadalso decided that the entire issue of Cultural Af-fairs (to be distributed at that summer confer-ence) should be devoted to topics dealing w:thaspects of the arts and education.

The conference theme was "Youth, Educationand the Arts," and in retrospect that particulargathering appears to have been a kind of catalystfor the further development of the arts educationmovement during the '70s. A whole new audiencewas becoming aware of this cause, for onethingartists, arts administrators, and suppor-ters of the arts. For another, many of the peoplewho were alreadyor soon would beengagedin significant developmental work around thecountry got to meet and talk with one another forthe first time at that conference.

Indeed, only a few miles away, in the St. Louissuburb of University City, a notable pilot projectwas already underway in the schools, the first ofmany the JDR 3rd Fund would support duringthe 1970s to explore the possibility that the artscould become "a fundamental part of the educa-tion of every child at every level of an entireschool system."

And, nearby as well, CEMREL (the regionaleducational lab) was just winding up its four-

year assessment of the massive, Federally-sup-ported Educational Theatre Projectand launching its curriculum-building work in aestheticeducation.

So, when the ACA conference planners putthe question solidly on the table, writ large be-fore a gathering of that size and importance forperhaps the first time, it was something of a con-sciousness-raising occasion. Should the artsitasked the assembled educators and arts practi-tionersbecome fundamental to the educationof every American child? It was a rhetorical question, of course, intended to start people thinking,not to obtain a majority opinion. Now, ten yearslater, however, it appears that most arts educa-tion advocates have made a solid assertion out ofthat somewhat venturesome question.

And yet, as then, the fundamental questionspersist, and much still remains to be done in ourattempts to turn the upsidedown curriculumright side up at long cast.

I hope there is still some ammunition in thesepages to help in that effort. There's very little init that could be termed original thinking. As thesubtitle says, it consists mainly of "some notes,queries and reflections" on the arts educationscene at that time. Still, it seems to have struck aresponsive chord among people who've read it; atleast some of them have told me, over the years,that it seemed to put into words many of thethings they themselves had been thinking aboutand trying to express.

I'll be grateful if it simply does that again, fora new audience.

April, 1981

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Junius EddyLittle Compton, RI

CURRICULUM

Some notes, queries, and reflectionson the arts in general education.

Junius Eddy

Since the time available for non-remunerativepursuits is likely to increase, it is necessary thatwe examine immediately the imbalances in thecurriculum. In spite of an assumed 'cultureexplosion,' we continue in the schools to neglectart, music, drama, dance, sculpture, and, in fact,almost everything that smacks of being non-utilitarian. Ironically, we may discover not longafter 1980 that, in the 1960's and 1970's wehad an upsidedown curriculum, with what wasconsidered then to be of most worth proving to beof little value to masses of the people. Let us atleast hedge our bets by assuring a reasonablebalance among the several realms of human inquiry.

JOHN I. GOODLAD

The Educational Program to 198o and Beyond

The fine arts coordinator in a state education de-partment said not long ago that, for schools through-out his state, his goal was to achieve something like

t2 per cent of the weekly classroom time for instruc-tion in Art and Music. This works out roughly to 8oto too minutes a week, two 40-minute periods. Isthis what we're willing to settle for, even assumingthat the instruction is the very best?

The peripheral role of the arts in the general ed-ucation of children in the nation's elementary and

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Taking American education as a whole (that istoday's 15,690 school districts and the 411/2 mil-lion students they serve) this broad generaliza-tion still holds up, it seems to me, a decade latera decade that's seen significant advances, at that!(See preface for a brief list.) Realistically, how-ever, we still find that the arts are "uneasy guestsin the house of education," taking it all in all.

Elliot Eisner has triedin a chapter of a book heedited in 1975 called "The Arts, Human Devel-opment, and Education" (published byMcCutchan).

4

secondary schools has been widely and endlesslydocumented. So let me dispense with apologies, ex-ceptions, and qualifications right here at the outset.Certainly, there are noteworthy exceptions scatteredacross the land: in a handful of school systemsandin some sub-systems of the larger metropolitansystemsinteresting, sometimes exciting, and oftenvaluable things are going on, no question about it.But in relation to the nation's ao,000 -odd schoolsystems, and to the 51 million children in thosesystems, the generalization holds up. The arts, even"Art" and "Music," are uneasy guests in the houseof education, no matter how many field trips thefourth grade takes to nearby museums.

We need not prolong the discussion further; thedocumentation exists in abundance; anyone who hasbothered to examine the educational process fromthis point of view conies up with the same answers.The questions that now need to be addressed are ofa different order. They take us in a score of differentdirections, toward many different levels of endeavor:and some of these questionsif we pursue them totheir logical conclusionslead us into the vicinity ifnot directly into the camp of the radical school re-formers. The answers don't come easilybut thequestions persist.

Do we really know what we want the arts to do and bein the schools? Can anyone among us articulateclearly what a school would be like if the arts wereimplanted as central elements in the learning expe-riences of each child as he moves from kindergarten(or pre-school) to graduation from high school? (Ithardly matters, if such a school could be described,that it might not be an acceptable model for every-one; the point is that all too few have really tried tothink out a model and place it in plain sight for othersto look at.)

Or, if implanting the arts as the "central core oflearning" is too unrealistic or impractical in terms ofthe foreseeable future, perhaps we should modifyour goals somewhat. If so, how much less will wesettle for? Will we accept an educational programthat gives aesthetic education parity with the stand-ard slit :Act matter, the so-called "bread-and-butter"courses? If that were a more realistic goal, whatwould we teach and how would we teach it? Or per-

haps more to the point, what would the kids belearning and how would they be learning it? Fromdirect involvement in the processes of the creativeand performing arts? From frequent immersion inmuseums, galleries and exhibit experiences? Fromregular encounters, as audiences, with top-notchproductions and performances? From direct inter-action with professional artists in the classroom, instudio workshops, in seminars? How much of allthis should happen when? At what educational leveland in what sequenceif any? How do we prepareor re-train teachers? How does all of this dove-tailwith other aspects of humanities education? Can we,after all, really afford it?

I would hazard a guess that in only a few places inthis country are people really addressing themselvesto fundamental questions of this sort. Most of us, Ithink, if asked to stand up at a school board meetingand speak about the role of the arts in the generaleducation of our own children would be hard put toexplain clearly what it is we're after, or why it'sworth the effort in the first place. In the face of strongarguments stressing practicalitiescost-per-student,scheduling problems, staffing difficulties, lack offacilitiesI suspect most of us would fall backquickly and re-group on still safer ground. Thisground usually nourishes suggestions that the schoolmerely work away steadily to get more "art" andmore "music" in the curriculum. (By more, incident-ally, do we imply a greater variety of experiences forthe same number of kids, or merely additionalcourses or time slots devoted to what we alreadyhave, so that more children can be reached?)

Orconsidering ourselves true crusadersdowe press concertedly for the step-by-step inclusion ofthose art forms the schools truly neglect : dance,film, and the theater arts? Would it be enough if wecould ever convince the school to hire creativedramatics specialists or dance teachers in numbersequal to those art and music teachers now serving inthe elementary grades? Would we consider it a majorvictory if, by some fluke, the school board voted todo just that? I think we wouldon the theory thatevery little victory helpsand I think we'd have wona battle, perhaps, but lost the wad

I wonder if the tendency to think in terms ofsubject matter about the rest of the curriculum hasn't

These are still among the fundamental questions,seems to me .

The "practicalities" have, of course, taken centerstage as we move further into the 1980s, withbudget-cutting the order of the day. Not, it wouldappear, the most auspicious climate for schoolimprovements of any kind, let alone those basedin the arts. And yet, hearteningly, the advocacyefforts continue, on many different fronts. Butwe must, I think, make our case on ever-morereasoned and explicit grounds if we are to keepmoving ahead.

For a time, in the early 70s, it appeared that the"open education" concept might indeed be sub-stantially transplanted to this country. A numberof initiatives were undertaken around the na-tionmany with Ford Foundation supportaimed chiefly at establishing teacher centerswhere Open Education practitioners could betrained. (Two of these are still operating, I'mtoldLillian Weber's Workshop Center for OpenEducation at City College (NYC), and theTeacher Centers Exchange at The Far West Labin San Francisco.) And, although a wholesaletransplant never really flowered here in the U.S.,the principles embodied in the idea have ap-peared in various ways in schools all across thenationboth in classroom management practiceand in instructional approaches such as manipula-tive materials in math, the "language expe-rience" approaches to reading, and in the hu-manizing qualities of the arts. A subtle influence,all in all, but a profound one.

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placed us in an untenable position when it comes toa consideration of curriculum reform in the arts. Itseems to have forced us, perhaps without our know-ing it, to deal with the arts as separate, compartmen-talized boxes of subject matterso that we wind upbeing grateful if we get more time for art or music atthe junior high level, and simply dazzled if we get achance to introduce creative dramatics or dance inthe primary school. I have a feeling that piece-mealchanges of this kind, achieved here and there, newand then, may simply divert us from the real issues.If we continue, we may end up having cheerfullyhung ourselves separately, art form by art form.

(THE BRITISH EXPERIENCE)The British schools offer some interesting insightsinto different ways of thinking about education andthe arts. Not long ago, I attended a meeting of inde-pendent school parents in Connecticut where MissRosemary 'Williams, the former head-mistress of anEnglish primary school, talked about an educationalapproach called "the integrateu day." 'This is one ofa number of phrases (others are "informal educa-tion," "open classroom") used to describe a way ofworking with children that has sprung up recentlyin many primary and upper elementary schools inthat country.

Due chiefly to a series of articles by JosephFeatherstone in The New Republic, and to other morerecent reports by visitors to the British schools, thisapproach has aroused the interest of more and moreAmerican educators as well. Currently, variations onthe model are being experimented with in a numberof schools in this country. This general approach toeducation has been summarized as follows in a recentarticle in The Center Forum:

It is characterized by openness and trust, and bya spatial openness of schools; doors are ajar andchildren are free to come and go, bringing objectsof interest in and taking objects of interest out.The organization of each room is open, subjectto change with changing needs. Children movecomfortably in this openness from place to placeand from activity to activity.

Time is open . .. open to permit and releaseand serve children rather than to constrain andprescribe and master. The curriculum is open to

significant choice by adults and by children... Per-haps most fundamental, open education is charac-terized by an openness of self. . . . Administratorsare open to initiatives on the part of teachers;teachers are open to the possibilities inherent inchildren ; children are open to the possibilities inother children, in materials, in themselves.As I listened to Miss Williams it seemed to me

that the arts were everywhere in that school. Thechildren (aged 5-.7) seemed to be immersed in artsactivities and experiencespainting, dramatics,sculpture, drawing, decorating, woodcraft, creativewriting, dance, or games involving some or all of theseelements. With slides Miss Williams emphasizedthat the so-called basic skills were never neglected ;in fact, one saw a good deal of work going on in read-ing, vocabulary development, and number skills. Shewent on to point out, however, that the teachers hadfound that in countless ways experiences of an ex-pressive or creative nature initiated or reinforcedthe development of cognitive skillsand vice versa.We've heard this before, of course, but it seemedactually to be happeninginformally and with a kindof harmonious balancein this school.

Furthermore, nobody seemed bent on "curricu-lumizing" the arts. They were available as a naturalpart of the child's daily learning experience, and hediscovered and enjoyed and explored them in his ownways and in his own time, not during the 40 minutesa wt. tk somebody came in to teach him Art and Mu-sic. ; To one seemed to have put together An ArtsCurn :ulum for this school, with a unit of this or aunit c f that (complete with suggested materials anda teactwe's guide) which the child should master ina given period of time before he could proceed to thenext unit.

I'm not sure we're ready yet for this spontaneousan approach to the arts in many schools in the UnitedStates. Our problems are too vast. Our classroomteachers arc too poorly prepared with respect to thearts and therefore too dependent on somebody'spackaged curriculum unit. And our parents too gen-erally are distressed when informality and enjoymenttake place in our schools. Furthermoreparticularlyin federally funded projectswe tend too often tofoster the haphazard imposition of one particularkind of arts experience at one education level. We

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She stayed longer than a year or two, incidental-ly; she married and is still here, teaching some-where in New England, I'm told.

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plump the high school kid (usually the poor, non-white child) down in front of Shakespeare or Brahmsor the Regional Ballet without caring much who he isor what has happened to him up to that moment (orwhat may happen to him in the future) . . . and wewonder why he seems unresponsive. When we can'tsee any cognitive progress after a year of two concerts,three plays and a ballet, we decide that we've triedthe arts and obviously they don't help the child much.So we get back to the real fundamentals of educationsuch as passing the SATs. Clearly then we need togive some attention to the problem of sequence andcontinuity in the development of programs in thearts; I wish we could find a way to do it, however,without "curriculumizing" it to death, particularlyin the elementary school, when the experiences oflearning can indeed be discovered and explored bythe child in a more personal fashion.

What came through loud and clear from MissWilliams' illustrated talk was the interrelatedness ofarts activities and experiences. All of the arts werethere, all contributing naturally to the child's learn-ing environment and available for him to exploreevery day. And the teachers for the most part seemedto be secure enough to get out of the way (unlesscalled upon) and let it happen. In very few of theslides Miss Williams put on the screen was the teacherprominently displayed; when you saw a teacher shewas usually working unobtrusively with a singlechild or a small group of children . . . helping, sug-gesting, guiding, implementing, facilitating . . . orotherwise serving as a partner in the process of dis-coveryrather than TEACHING.

Nothing new in these concepts. We've heardabout them for years. And in a few schools peoplehere have been trying them out. But for me it was al-most like discovering all over again what "learning isall about" to listen to this wise, witty and articulatewoman from England tell about the way it happenedin her school. (She said, incidentally, that she ar-rived there as head-mistress planning to lead thestaff systematically away from all this "integratedday" romanticism and, by mid-year, had been con-verted. Nowfortunately for usshe is in this coun-try for a year or two helping some of our teachers andadministrators learn how they might make it happenhere.)

(COMMON CAUSE)

Is it too much to expect the artsand their school-based practitioners, the arts educatorsto come outof isolation and make common cause of this wholegallant endeavor? Or are they, in a phrase T. E. Law-rence once used to describe his friends the Arabs,"a tissue of small jealous principalities incapable ofcohesion"? Is it possibleand not only when theSpring Music and Art Festival makes them uneasyonce-a-year partners in the high school's culturallifethat the Art Teacher and the Music Teacherwill one day come out of their offices (at opposite endsof the building), look uncritically at one another andagree that the mission is bigger than both of them?

Fortunately, there are already some encouragingecumenical signs: here and there, it appears that thetraditional barriers are breaking downand that akind of regenerative cross-fertilization is taking place.Which is to say that some of the people concernedwith developments in this field are beginning to breakout of their compartments in the established artsdisciplines and move toward some "meaningful re-lationship" with one another. This is happening notonly among the various art forms that make up thecreative and performing arts, as educational expe-riences, but also between the arts collectively andother subject disciplines in the school curriculum.Whether these interdisciplinary concerns are ap-proached under the heading of "Aesthetic Educa-tion," or referred to as "A Related Arts Program,"or as "The Combined Arts Approach," or are evenincluded under the broader rubric of "HumanitiesEducation," the feeling seems to be abroad thatinthe context of education, at leastthe arts have muchto gain by talking and working together.

A few educational research and development insti-tutions are now engaged in interdisciplinary cur-riculum building in the arts, notably CEMREL, theCentral Midwestern Regional Educational Laborato-ry, which is in the third year of what is referred to asThe Aesthetic Education Program. The several as-sociations of arts educators are making statements attheir conventions and publishing pieces in theirjournals that suggest the old isolationism may bedying. Pilot projects concerned with "all of the artsfor all of the children" are being designed and im-

"Common cause" has, in a way, been the watch-word of the past decade. All kinds of walls havebeen broken down, and a host of joint efforts ha%.ecome to passso that today, at least, we hearpeople referring increasingly to "arts programs,"not only to "art" or to "music."

CEMREL has now completed its K-6 AestheticEducation Program, developing, field-testing,and producing a score or more instructional un-its to be used in elementary schools.

In Washington, the four major professional asso-ciations of arts educationNDA (dance), NAEA(art), MENC (music), and ATA (theatre) haveestablished an informal organization for com-mon efforts, called the DAMT (sounds like"planet") Group.

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The JDR 3rd Fund's Arts in Education Programhas terminated its activities, but its 12-years ofsystematic support for school-based projects,networks of big-city schools, and a coalition ofstate education agencies for developmental workon the "arts in education" idea, has had aninfluence out of all proportion to its size.

Many stirred uneasily, to be sure, but only a veryfew could be said to have had their foundationsshaken.

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plemented in selected schools across the countryunder private as well as public sponsorship.

Several state education agenciesnotably in NewYork, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vemontareemphasizing multi-disciplinary approaches in theirprograms and training; teacher education institutionsare (ever so slowly) beginning to see the aesthetichandwriting on the school-house wall, and, in iso-lated instances, are trying to figure out what oughtto be done to prepare more aesthetically literate teach-ers for elementary classrooms; and even the specialistteacher training institutions (in music, art, theater,etc.) are beginning to stir uneasily as the ripples ofthis movement lap more and more insistently at thebase of their ivory towers.

Obviously the tasks are many and incredibly di-verse in this new attempt to turn the upsidedowncurriculum right side up. There are tasks for theo-rists, conceptualizers, and planners; for experiment-ers, researchers, and field-testers ; for artists whoenjoy relating to young people, and for students whoare ready to learn about feelings and sensibilities aswell as to acquire knowledge; for curriculum devel-opers, teacher trainers, and resource specialists; forstrategists, innovators, and facilitators; and ulti-mately for writers, reporters, and disseminators.

What appears to me to be urgently needed now,however, are strategists. We need people who canbegin to devise a series of game-plans for the arts-in-general-education movement, people who canforce us to keep thinking about goals even as we keepon being pleased with ourselves for racking up thosefirst downs. We need to find ways to help those whoare pursuing separate parts of the task to find outwhat may be going on in the next city, or acrosstownand to make it possible for all of them to seetheir work in the broadest possible context.

Melvin Tumin, Professor of Sociology and An-thropology at Princeton, is one of the most effectivestrategists around. Not long ago, he took a close lookat the arts-in-education movement and presented itwith a Strategy:

As we consider the best possible strategies forenergizing the role of art education in the schools,it is crucial to consider not what the goals of artmay be, but rather what ways art can contributeto the more general goals of quality education.

If we are confident, as we should be, that the goalsof art education are contained within the goals ofgeneral quality education, then we are in the veryadvantageous position of stressing the importanceof art education as a valuable, if not indispensable,means toward the achievement of those moregeneral goals ; these are goals on which assent iseasier to get than it would be with regard to thepresumably more particular goals of art educa-tion as such. The steps, then, involve first theproof of the importance of the general goals ofquality education and then, second, the proof ofthe relevance of art education as a means to thosegeneral goals.Dr. Tumin was speaking to a group of art edu-

cators and his thesis, of course, may do violence tothe views of the art-for-art's sake contingent in edu-cation. But at least he has a strategy.

(RESOURCES AND INSTRUMENTALITIES)

During the last four or five years, federal fundshave been flowing to the schools in unprecedentedamounts, principally for programs and projects thatqualified for support under the several titles of theElementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.Some of this money obviously found its way intoprojec:s and activities related directly or indirectlyto the arts. On a percentage basis, the amounts spenton the arts were about what one would expect : some-what under io per cent of the total funds.

In terms of actual dollars, however, never havethe arts had such an educational windfall : somethingon the order of $8o million of Title III funds (theso-called "innovation" title of the act) supported artsor arts-related projects over ESEA's first five yearswhile Title I (special programs for the educationof disadvantaged students) supported "instructionalprograms" in categories labeled Art, Music and Cul-tural Enrichment to the tune of about $200 millionduring its first three years. Even if half of the fundsin the Cultural Enrichment category supported proj-ects that had nothing to do with the arts per se, theamounts that did support such activities are sizeableindeed.

What has it all meant? Was it, as many peoplesuspect, mainly an exercise that emphasized occa-sional "exposure" of some students to arts activities

Tumin did indeed have a strategyprobably themost effective one of all, as it turned out. The ideahe enunciated has been the basis of a largenumber of state and local district planning ef-forts that have culminated in "comprehensive"programs concerned with learning in, through,and about the arts. In almost every instance, thegoals for the arts were shown to be relevant to the"general goals of quality education," in additionto their fundamental value as subjects in theirown right. It is this double- or triple-play poten-tial which, in many ways, justifies our belief in amore central role for the arts in Americanschools.

Nobody ever really did study this five-year de-velopment very intensivelyas it concerned thearts at any rate.

And Next Time did Indeed Comewith the ArtsEducation Program legislation of 1975but the"collective experience" of the early Title I - Titleill days wasn't "sifted through" very widely forthe general principles involved. The principlesthat seemed most to influence the new effort inthe '70s appeared to come from outside the publicsectorfrom privately-funded pilot projects likethose of the JDR 3rd Fund, for example.

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and events, at a cost few if any local school systemscould ever afford otherwise? Has it resulted in worth-while curricular innovations that have been adoptedby the project schools themselves? Were exemplaryarts programs developed that actually have served asmodels for other schools, as the Title III architectshoped? Has all the money and attention and experi-mental time made any real difference in the ways weinvolve youngsters in arts experiences in the schools?Has it helped us learn how to use the artistic resourcesof our communitiesand the recent upsurge ofneighborhood arts activity from our racial and ethnicsubculturesmore purposefully and effectively? Inshort, has it helped us clarify our ultimate objectivesrelative to the arts in education?

Probably no one can provide reliable answers tosuch questions at this point in time but, beyond therelative successes and failures of specific projects, Ithink it likely that extremely valuable insights couldbe gained from studying intensively the broadnational pattern of this five-year development. Itrepresents an unprecedented expenditure of fundson an aspect of education that traditionally has beenregarded as a frill by the majority of educators, schoolboard members and parents. More importantly, how-ever, it also represents an unprecedented collectiveexperience on the part of teachers, artists, studentsand administrators that ought to be sifted throughcarefully before much more time passes to find outwhat it reveals in terms of general principles thatmight be applied when Next Time Comes.

Aside from questions of substanceconcerningwhat is being taught, when and how it is taught, andto what ultimate endit may be instructive to lookcritically at ether elements of this five-year experienceas well, to examine some of the procedures andinstrumentalities employed in the whole process, withparticular reference to projects and programs thatinvolved the arts.

For example, I suspect that many Title III projectshave been badly misrepresented by a tendency on thepart of federal program officers and local project staffalike to regard them as "demonstrations." Often, aproject that has been labeled a demonstration projectis really not "demonstrating" anything but is, rather,"experimenting" with somethingand therefore

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ought more aptly to be called "an experimentalproject" or "a pilot project."

This mis-labeling, it seems to me, puts the projectwhich is probing tentatively in a new direction at asevere disadvantage because we ought to expect moreof a demonstration project than we do of a pilot project.Whatever is being demonstrated presumably is worth

demonstrating since it's unlikely that anyone wouldwant to demonstrate a practice that doesn't work. On

the other hand, an experimental or pilot project mayby definition succeed or fail as perfectly legitimate

outcomes of an experimental process.Presumably, if a pilot project had a high degrse of

success it might develop logically into a follow-upactivity that would be worth demonstrating some-where. If the demonstration held up, the hope wouldbe that other schools, in the same system as well as inother locations, would go and do likewise, as their

own circumstances permitted. (Among the manywise things The New Republic's Joseph Featherstonehas written, this one sticks in my mind apropos ofdemonstrations: "New York City has tried out everygood idea in educational historyonce.")

Sowith respect to many of the arts projects orprograms which have received support from Title IIIor Title I of ESEAwe've really been dealing, moreoften than not, with pilot projects than we have withdemonstration projects. My guess is that there areonly a few programs involving new ways of teachingin the arts which can be demonstrated these days, butI suspect there are a host of new approaches that areworth experimenting with. This is precisely why TitleIII's Planning Projects were often as valuable as itsOperational Projectsbecause they could establishtruly experimental pilot projects instead of beingpressured to demonstrate something before theywere ready. And it is why many Operational Projectsgot in way over their heads trying to demonstratesomething which ought to have been considered anexperiment. We have usually expected too muchfrom these Title III Operational Projects too soon.And, because they often have been unable success-fully to demonstrate in one, or two, or three yearsthat "the youngsters behave differently" due to this

or that involvement in the arts, we have cut them off

abruptly.This kind of revolving-door approach to federal

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A few Federally-funded education programshave supported longer-term projects in recentyearsthe Teacher Corps, for example, is nowcompleting a wide range of projects funded for afive-year cycle. However, only one project (out of140 or so nationwide) is primarily concernedwith the arts, that sponsored jointly by HunterCollege and Community School District 4 inManhatten, now in its third year with a programof teacher re-training and staff development inthe arts and humanities.

A longitudinal study/research idea that stillhasn't been done, to my knowledge. Maybesomeday .

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grant-making may not necessarily appeal to projectdirectors or school officials when it comes to educa-tion programs generally, but they have somehowlearned to live with it. Moreover, in the regular sub-ject matter fields, the indications of real effect onstudents, the evidence that something is working,often can be determined within a three-year span.However, this principle is not readily applied to cer-tain pilot projects involving the arts in education. Inmany aspects of the arts there are as yet few reliabledevices for determining whether some new approachis indeed worth all the bother and expense. Perhapsmore longitudinal studies are needed in the artsbutobviously for this approach to produce worthwhileresults, and for many other aesthetic outcomes whichsomeday we may learn to identify and evaluate, longerperiods of time are necessary in experimental work.

It would be refreshing sometime to have a govern-ment program approve and support a pilot educa-tional project in the arts for a five- or a ten-year period.It would, for once, be a recognition of the fact thatthe arts are different from other subject matter.Educational experiences in the arts may reveal theireffects on the student way down the track, five or tenyears laterin the creative way he expresses him-self, the heightened ways in which he senses orperceives the world around him, in how he acts orreacts in personal relationships, how he handles him-self in new situations, or makes decisions involvingaesthetic values. These are really the sorts of ultimatepay-offs we ought to be looking for in programs deal-ing with the arts in general education, and they veryseldom reveal themselves to researchers, teachers, oradministratorsmuch less school board members,parents, and interested citizensat the end of athree-year pilot project.

It is distressing that money will probably havebeen wasted by allowing these arts projects to die offin so arbitrary a manner. It will be unlikely, now,that anything much will be disseminated about mostof them because, with some noteworthy exceptions,they really had nothing to demonstrate yet! They wereindeed still experimenting, but they were closing thegap year by year; and perhaps, by the end of anothertwo, three or four years, it would have been possibleto discover whole groups of students who reallywould be "behaving differently" because of their

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exposure to and involvement in these arts processes.Perhaps, too, within the next several years, some ofthe sound educational researchers working in thisfield would have begun to zero in on some differentkinds of devices for assessing such programs, so thatthe word evaluation would he more than a dirty wordto the artists, a joke to the ,students, and a frustratingpuzzle to the educators. Indeed, some of the peoplein these projects have begun to evolve evaluationinstruments of their own that seem to have con-siderable assessment potential.

The lesson in all this, it seems to me, is that pilotprojects in the arts in education (as opposed todemonstration projects) should be looked at differ-ently from pilot projects in other educational fields,and be given greater developmental flexibility. Giventime to see some things through to the end, and timeto edge closer to evaluation techniques that may meansomething, and some money to document what takesplace so it can indeed be disseminated if it turns outto be really usefulonly then, I think, will it makeeducational and economic sense to initiate arts proj-ects of the Title III variety again.

(HUMANIZING THE SCHOOLS)It is a little surprising to me that, somehow, longbefore this, the movers and shakers in the arts-in-general-education movement have not been recog-nized as strong potential allies by those educationalreformers who are concerned with ways of "humaniz-ing the schools"and vice versa.

Perhaps this is another result of the tendency in thearts to focus rather narrowly on subject matter andto consider curriculum reform as "improvement"rather than major change. In a remarkably cogent andinsightful piece for Educational Leadership, ElliotEisner recently pointed out that "the vast majority ofcurriculum development projects in the sciences andmathematics have demanded no structural change onthe part of the institution. These programs, like inter-changeable parts, were designed to fit into theexisting structure. Can humanities and arts programssucceed in such a structure or will they demand areconceptualization of how schooling proceeds?"

I suspect our attempts at curriculum reform in thearts have been concerned more with programs thatmight fit into the existing educational structure than

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Arts projects of this general kind were, of course,initiated again, though much more modestlysupported, under the OE /ED Arts EducationProgram beginning in 1976. And although somecursory evaluation and documentation seems tohave been done, very little about what works andwhat doesn't, the processes employed and thematerials developed, has yet been disseminatedon the 350 or so projects funded during this 1976-80 period.

We still seem to undervalue what research, as-sessment, and careful documentation could un-earth and deliver to us. At least very little moneyis allocated for it.

And so, when the Next Next Time Comes, if itdoes, we may once again find ourselves startingall over againfrom scratch. In this field, itseems, the past is not necessarily a great teacher.We are splendid Wheel Reinventors, though!

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Somehow, the potential inherent in this seeming-ly advantageous alliance, for stengthening theposition of the arts in our schools, has never beenfully realized. Maybe the problem does indeed liein the unrealistic perceptions both camps have ofone another; maybe it's just that they've been sobusy making their own cases they never lookedbeyond their noses.

But, whatever the reasons (and acknowledgingseveral attempts to bridge the gap that might bedescribed as "near misses"), this is an opportuni-ty that only a very fewon either sidehavereally seized to any purposeful effect.

It surprises me, toobecause the reasons forsuch an alliance still seem to be cogent and per-suasive, whether you're speaking of "the schoolreform movement" in its so-called "radical"form (as I was ten years ago), or simply as fun-damental educational change.

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with programs that might lead to fundamentalchanges in the nature of the school experience itself.As a result, we have failed to sense how close we are tothe concerns of those whofrom a different vantagepointare seeking ways to humanize the educationalprocess. And those who want to reform the schools inquite radical ways have failed to sense how similartheir conceptions of education are to the kinds ofprocesses and experiences which uniquely the artscan provide. The reformers see arts educators as cur-riculum-tinkerers in specialized fields rather than asan embodiment of precisely those humanistic valuesthey envision at the heart of the whole educationalprocess; arts educators regard the reformers either aswild-eyed radicals, unstructured sensitivity-trainingadherents, or merely as tinkerers with administrativeand instructional practices rather than as genuineallies in the aesthetic education cause.

What are some of the conceptual similarities?Well, for one thing, the humanist school reformersare deeply involved with the social relevance of whatis being taught. Certainly, the arts speak directlyto this issue, in their concern with the value of directexperience, with the immediacy of feelings, with aspontaneous response to one's environment, and withgaining insights about the past through aesthetic ex-periences in the present. One of the basic tools ofrelevant education, it seems to me, is the develop-ment and refinement of perceptual skills and this, ofcourse, is a matter the arts are peculiarly equipped toilluminate.

The radical school reformers are also deeply con-cerned about the processes of teaching and learning;they see educational reform increasingly in terms ofthe ways in which teachers are functioningin theclassroom or out of itto develop less authoritarianand more creative relations with students. And theysee the problem of relevance in what is being taughtas having a direct relationship to how it is beingtaught.

It seems to me that here, in their distinctive ap-proaches to the ways in which teaching generally canbe carried on, the arts may ultimately make one oftheir most effective contributions to educationalreform. The arts, as processesas ways of workingcreatively with individuals and groupsneed to beexamined carefully for their application to teaching

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situations as humanizing instrumentalities. In thisconcept, I am convinced, there exists the possibilityof achieving something akin to genuine democracyin education.

Another major tenet of the current school reformmovement is its emphasis on affective as well ascognitive goals. Mario Fantini and Gerald Weinsteinrecently discussed this question in the NEA Journaland, interestingly enough, without once referring tothe role of the arts: "In the standard educationalprocess," they wrote, several years ago, "cognitivedevelopment is equated with 'knowing about' avariety of academic subjects, rather than with anunderstanding of how these subjects may serve thestudent's needs. Too many instructional roads seemto lead to cognition as the end product. Yet it isobvious that knowing something cognitively doesnot always result in behavior that follows on thatknowing. This is because knowledge alone cannotinfluence total behavior. Moreover, all kinds ofknowledge are not equally influential. The missingingredient in this equation seems to be knowledgethat is related to the affective or emotional world ofthe learner" (emphasis added). When they speal, of"the emotional world of the learner" and of tie needfor educators to link a student's feelings to what theyhope to teach him, reformers like Fantini andWeinstein are touching on questions the arts shouldbe dealing with but seldom do.

Beyond this, but growing directly out of thesesame concerns, is "identity"the need youngpeople have for discovering who they really are, theirneed for positive relationships with others, and forlearning what they can (or cannot) do to gain somemeasure of control over what happens to them. Theseare also issues that relate directly to the search for"a more humane education," and they are obviouslyin the realm of feelings and emotions which areuniquely susceptible to discovery by the studentthrough involvement with the processes and productsof the creative and performing arts. This is especiallytrue foi students who come from non-white ethnicbackgrounds and from poverty-stricken environ-ments.

It is, in fact, the conspicuous failure of educationto respond humanely to the social, emotional andeducational needs of minority-group youth in urban

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ti

One of the most important developments of the1965-70 periodbut perhaps the least under-stood and taken advantage of by those in artseducation generally.

And now, after a decade in which sonic impor-tant changes have indeed taken place in this field.I suspect we're entering yet another of thosetimes when, facing even more uncertain pros-pects, those same fundamental questions must beaddressed more purposefully than ever before.

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schools which has been chiefly responsible for infus-ing the movement to humanize the schools with anew sense of moral indignation, urgency, and com-mitment these last several years. Conversely, one ofthe settings outside the schools which has been ableto meet and nourish these needs most effectively isthe neighborhood arts center. At their best, these newcommunity-centered programs that focus on artsexperiences and activities have developed intriguingalternatives to big-city, public educationand theysuggest ways of thinking about educational environ-ments that have profound implications for the schools.

In some ways, the new wave of educational reformmay well present the arts-in-education movementwith a unique tactical opportunity. For once, theartsby which I mean arts educators, artists, andtheir community-based resourcescan join in amovement with non-arts educators and find them-selves in the company of sympathetic companionsfrom many different camps, all moving in the samegeheral direction over reasonably common ground.Toward what end? Well, that of course is the Ulti-mate Question. The Tumin Strategy envisions gener-al education goals more or less commonly acceptedby all those who are concerned with education of highqualityand such goals would probably include hu-manizing elements acceptable to arts educators andschool reformers alike. Or would they? For the ques-tions persist. Is it possible to define common goals?Agree on joint objectives? Create - w options?Discover better alternatives? Develop unifyingstrategies? Settle on immediate tactics? Nice, big,global questions.

Interestingly enough, they turn out to be variantsof the same question, because the concept of changeis centrally at issue. Certainly, it's easier to think upsuch questions and ask them at random than it is tosuggest answers. But this may be one of those timesfollowing a period of intense and active involvemcntin new program developmentwhen it's importantonce again for those concerned about the future of artsand humanities education in this country to try tocome to grips with basic issues and principles. Andtherefore, I suppose, it follows that we must addressourselves to those difficult fundamental questions.As Carl Sandburg put it in The People Yes: Where to?What next?