New Urban Arts - Young Professors

Last night I attended an event at the local organization New Urban Arts, a space for high school students to explore creativity and arts projects. Three students who have graduated from high school through NUA hosted a discussion about education reform and the work they are doing since having moved on from high school. The conversation attempted to delve into the issues of our time, including pedagogical practices, successful and failed programs, and (of course) assessment. I enjoyed myself and felt surrounded by like-minded people, though I felt that the conversation was only beginning to get interesting and deep enough when we had to leave.

Despite the ill-timed departure, I was able to get a few things out of the discussion. First, one of the panelists spoke about his program teaching math, science and history through art projects. The panelist described how he discovered what a passion for learning his students had when they were able to engage with their work. He told a story of hosting the program in what was regarded as the most trouble-some class of students and their success in teaching them the material. He went on to tell about how after leaving the class after completing the project that during the week of the program those "trouble students" hadn't had a single problem the entire week.

Another topic that came up was the idea of creating a policy to implement on a national level the type of work that the three panelists were participating in. A member of the audience suggested that by the time any policy or pedagogy reaches the national level it ceases to work. I believe that it is less a question of time and more a question of the overarching ideal of a nation-wide policy in the first place. The projects and programs discussed were all very relevant to those involved in the communities they were hosted in simply because they were specific to that environment. Hearing that statement sparked my own thoughts and beliefs about this question of policy and I believe that there is no one program that will "fix" education. The most we can aim for is a best practice model with modular components that can be added on to, subtracted from, or uniquely adjusted to fit the current environment.

The final thought that I'll share is my ideas of what exactly we should be teaching students. It was clear from the biographical presentations that everyone there used art to teach the materials that couldn't be taught in the traditional way because of differing learning styles. But what I am wondering is whether or not we should be putting all our time into teaching those skills in the first place? Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe in learning math and science and writing, but I question whether the group of people I sat with Thursday night began to question the content instead of the practice. Yes, we need to teach students those skills. But should those skills take the entirety of a school day or week? More and more research is coming out that suggests that top employers are most interested in hiring people with emotional intelligence. I believe that if we can find a medium between teaching students 2+2 as well as teaching them the essential non-cognitive variables of life outside the classroom, we will all be much happier.  Heck, maybe we can even find a way to teach them 2+2 through our non-cog practices. Or is that too radical?