YALA Celebrates Teaching Artist Institute for YA Week March 25-April 6
Teaching artists aren’t just born, they are trained. This year for YA week (March 24-April 6), Young Audiences of Louisiana uplifts a few programs we love to be part of, ones that guide our programming and flow from our mission, vision and values. We highlight Teaching Artist Institute (aka TAI) with a deep dive into what the training is all about.
Each year, YALA trains a dozen or so professional artists to become teaching artists in a 2 day workshop for their Teaching Artist Institute (TAI) Training and Residency program. This year the process began with a Call for Artists where artists were invited to bring their artistry to the classroom.
At the two day training, a dozen or so professional artists learned the fundamentals of teaching through arts integration and will receive a stipend to pilot a five session residency in a local classroom—all at no cost to the artist. After the intensive workshop, the artists will be placed with classroom teachers not to teach art, but to use art to teach any subject: math, science, history, whateva!
You might ask: What’s the difference between a teaching artist and an art teacher?
Both of these teaching professionals enrich the lives of the students and communities they work with. However, while both have backgrounds in professional performing or art making, teaching artists generally teach big-picture, cultural, “real world” aspects of the arts and use similar skill-building in the arts, but are not necessarily working toward student mastery.
Most importantly, a teaching artist typically works as a visitor in schools and so must practice culturally responsive pedagogy. To this end, teaching artists must adhere to the goals of the curriculum relative to the situation they are in, whether public or private school or a homeschool group.
The idea for the TAI grew out of a need for formal training for artists who were hired to teach in afterschool programs, often with little experience or formal pedagogical training.
According to YALA Executive Director Jenny James, “Back in the day we didn’t have any training unless we had come to YA with a certain skill set as a natural teacher or prior training. Basically there was no structured development or a pipeline in place for better opportunities.”
At that time, YALA provided artists on our roster mostly to work with programs outside school, in summer or after school and occasionally for performances. “Sometimes there was room for professional development in a grant, but once we started seeing how much professional development helped artists (anecdotally and in terms of evaluations and observations), YALA realized the need for a transparent process and pipeline to prepare new artists to become teaching artists.”
In this evolving process, YALA takes advantage of opportunities to train and sustain a next generation of teaching artists. “Sometimes artists who come to the institute are already on the roster, and we always need fresh artists to learn how to be teachers.”
The TAI training sessions this year were held at BellArtspace Apartment dance/Music Studio,a community of artists, elders, veterans, and others residing in the former Andrew J. Bell Junior High School in New Orleans Seventh Ward.
TAI program coordinator Ja’nese Brooks-Galathe created and led the recent TAI workshops which are designed to center the artist in a classroom philosophy as quickly as possible.
The participants learn how to integrate concepts related to their art form to the learning process for a variety of subjects.
For Dance: body, action, space, time, energy;
For Music: beat, pitch, tempo, rhythm, meter, timbre;
For Theater: character, setting, plot, script, dialogue, conflict
And
For Visual arts: color, texture, work/piece, line, shape, tone, pattern
This transformational training process can best be exemplified in a quote from a lesson plan the workshop about using dance principles and techniques to teach the Butterfly life cycle.
“In this unit, students will learn about the concept of the four stages of the butterfly life cycle, reading informational text. Using the art form of Dance, students will study basic movements and the elements of Dance. The artistic components of dance will support students in understanding the key details of the butterfly life cycle expressed through the use of movement to retell the informative text through choreographed movements (retelling of the cycle).”
TAI’s philosophy guides Teaching Artists in integrating art into the classroom using a collaborative approach between teachers and artists, with both learning from each other. Both walk away with tools for their toolbox. The Teaching Artist walks away with an art residency and knowledge about what affects students the most, as well as foundational skills to teach elsewhere.
As YALA’s Director of Professional Development, this year Brooks-Galathe hosted the institute for the second time. She noted that many artists have been out of the classroom for a while and need a foundation in organizing and planning effective lessons and experiences for the kids, as well as understanding structure in artmaking as logical steps that can be followed.
Working at YALA for many years, performance artist Dana Leon encourages artists to explore teaching. “Experiencing the arts with children is a breath of fresh air. To see their faces light up when they
are able to integrate arts concepts, and knowing they are having fun while they are learning something new at the same time, is rewarding to me. I feel like I’m enriching the youth and instilling in them a love of art that they will never forget,” said Leon, who works with pre-school and elementary school students, as well as adults through Young Audiences of Louisiana’s various programs.
“Working as a teaching artist gives me more experience as a professional artist. Also, it makes me a better artist, because it sharpens my skills by forcing me to constantly articulate what I’m doing.”
Although teaching artists will be more prepared after the residency, It’s just a beginning. They have to continue training. YALA works to provide more opportunities and residencies–daytime, early childhood, after school, our performance roster and more opportunities for work as well–that much needed pipeline.
TAI training is essential for students, teachers, and teaching artists. As Janese Brooks-Galathe explains, “We know the world better when we include the artist because art integration addresses the different needs and learning styles of students, gives them a voice and a holistic way to develop the student in community. Arts integration creates teams, collaborations that heighten a sense of community in the classroom.”