Feature Stories
The Arts Teacher as Artist
By Mario R. Rossero, M.S.Ed.
Administrator, Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster Program
Chicago Public Schools
How can you design professional development opportunities that rejuvenate your teaching practice and challenge you, both as an artist and as a conceptual thinker?
My job is to professionally develop over 120 visual art, music, dance, and drama teachers in the areas of curriculum, instruction, leadership, and community building in Chicago Public Schools. As a former visual arts teacher, I often found myself asking, "Where are the workshops for arts teachers that are relevant, challenging, and grounded in artistic practice?" This question, along with feedback from my teachers and arts partners, guides the design and implementation of the professional development that is offered during the school year and over the summer.
My team strives to create professional development that is practical and conceptual. Alongside sessions that address daily school concerns, there are sessions that develop and access the artist within the educator. For these, we aim to tap into Chicago's community resources as teaching tools, both in terms of people and opportunities. Our approach to developing the "Arts Teacher as Artist" consists of a three-part planning phase.
Planning Phase:
- Identify: Local artists and institutions are identified based upon skills, location, arts discipline, and relevancy to Chicago youth.
- Discuss: We meet with the artists to discuss the goal and structure of the workshop, focusing on process over product.
- Expand: Once the idea for a workshop has been formed, we then expand it. In other words, we are looking for arts experiences that stretch the teachers' thinking and art-making, thus modeling an approach to use with students.
Our professional develop workshops have four main components.
Workshop Components:
- Challenge: A challenge is set forward from the administrative/artist team around a conceptual idea or question.
- Scaffold: A structure is created that allows for teacher experimentation that still presents a clear path and sense of order, such as having teachers respond to a series of limitations and constraints.
- Artistic Process: The partnering artist/institution has a primary responsibility to teach the arts teachers an artistic process that they can explore.
- Reflection: Time for reflecting on the experience of the workshop is vital. This often includes asking participants about teaching struggles and successes, and classroom applications.
Teachers' feedback from these workshops has noted success in two key areas: teacher growth and student engagement with the arts. Teachers' individual growth was linked to the high level of art-making, the access to local cultural institutions, and the creation of a collegial community. Participating teachers integrated their newly learned art practices into their teaching, increased student exposure to the arts through field trips, and improved connections between arts content and student interest.
Examples of "Art Teacher as Artist" Workshop Themes:
- Collaboration in Nature: Attention to movement in natural vs. urban spaces
- Structure/DeStructure: Creating sound sculptures inspired by architecture in the downtown area of the Chicago Loop
- Neighborhood as Curriculum: Creative responses to the historic Bronzeville neighborhood
- Hip Hop Aesthetics: Spoken word pieces created based on research of voice, scratching/mixing, and visuals
- The Art of Inheritance: Asking "What have we inherited? And how do our inheritances conflict?"
- Discovery: Self-discovery of the past, present, and future