LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

 A NEWSLETTER FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS OF THE ARTS

 Spring, 1998

This, our third newsletter, represents change in both the scope of its information and the readers it serves. The newsletter began as an offshoot of the Special Interest Group for Teachers of the Arts, a group formed four years ago to provide a meeting place and network for special educators who emphasize the arts in their teaching. A newsletter was a logical way to reach those unable to attend the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual convention. The Special Interest Group meets each year at CEC to share ideas about using the arts with students with disabilities and to highlight arts related presentations in the CEC convention program. These presentations are not easy to spot because there is no "art education" category at CEC. Each arts related presentation is listed under a disability area or division category (over fifteen categories). In contrast, art presentations that focus on special education students are easy to locate in the National Art Education Association (NAEA) program under the category, "Exceptional Children."

Past newsletters have described arts presentations, shared information about the Special Interest Group meeting, as well as information on articles, books, and Very Special Arts events. That information had been addressed primarily to those in special education. This newsletter is addressed to both special education and art educators who combine the fields of art education and special education. It is a recognition that there is considerable overlap in our work with students who have disabilities and there is much that we can learn from each other. It also acknowledges that there has been little sharing of information between our two professional organizations, Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the National Art Education Association (NAEA).

Therefore, as long-time members of CEC and a new member of NAEA, we felt a need to expand the scope of this newsletter to include descriptions of presentations at both the CEC and the NAEA annual conventions. We hope to provide an opportunity to share the exciting ways both professions address art for special education students. The interests of special education and art education teachers increasingly overlap as more special education students are included in art classes. This trend was demonstrated at one NAEA convention session in San Francisco. A speaker asked if there were any special education teachers in the audience. An audience member replied, "Aren't we all special educators now?" The name of our newsletter was most prescient.

B.G.

"All art has this characteristic - it unites people." , Leo Tolstoy

CEC celebrated its 75th anniversary this year in Salt Lake City. There were over 400 presentations in the Salt Palace Convention Center and eight of the sessions focused on using the arts to teach academic and/or affective skills. The presenters demonstrated a variety of successful teaching strategies using the arts. One used drama to teach cooperative skills to students with behavior disorders. Another used play acting to increase the use of language and showed videotapes of the plays with students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Music was used to build positive attitudes towards people with disabilities. Videotapes were used to show creative movement activities for children with and without disabilities. These and other sessions are described below.

PRESENTATIONS:

Jeff Moyer 's presentation, "We're People First-An Innovative Activity Book with Music That Promotes Inclusion," filled the room to capacity. As music and song carried into the corridor, more and more people kept squeezing in to join the fun. Moyer, a musician who happens to be blind, writes upbeat songs about people with disabilities. He wrote the songs he said because,"There is no music about disabilities, yet 20% of the population experiences a disability." His lyrics are direct and sensitive and deal with subjects such as changing schools, being different, coming from a divorced background, being a survivor, and dealing with the ridicule of classmates.

These emotionally heavy topics were taught using Karioke, choral response, singing rounds, and are musically accompanied by tapes made by Moyer. The melodies were easy to learn and Moyer soon had everyone participating. His songs can be used by teachers with music ability as well as those who could be described as musically challenged. Moyer, who lives in Cleveland, OH, hopes he will be remembered as,"the guy who brought rhythm and blues back to special education."

 James T. Jackson , Assistant Professor of Special Education at Southern Illinois University; Edwardsville, IL, brought drama to his session, "Using Narrative Plays to Teach Cooperation Skills to Children with Behavior Disorders." He described ways to increase social and cooperative skills in students with behavior problems through stories transformed into narrative plays. Modifications were made to stories before the students used them for play acting. For example, an age-appropriate story,"The Tent", was changed to include the students' names and to reflect their background. Jackson reduced the story text to one page to avoid "overwhelming the students with a large number of page turnings." Jackson also suggested that the narrator's role could be divided, and that all vocabulary should be reviewed with the students before the play. In addition, Jackson suggested a number of trust-building activities to use before the play began.

"The Tent" follows two boys who want to build a tent in their backyard. Jackson first led the audience through the story, then divided the group into pairs (to work cooperatively). Each team used the art materials supplied by Jackson for a hands-on tent designing activity. The tents were shown to everyone and provided an opportunity for positive reinforcement as each team commented on the tents made by others.

David Conway , Associate Professor of Special Education & Communication Disorders at the University of Nebraska, described a six-week summer performing arts program for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. "Language Learning through the Performing Arts" described a collaborative effort of teachers, paraprofessionals, and local artists that would teach language skills through the performing arts. American Sign Language (ASL) storytellers helped the children select books that could be adapted as scripts for plays. Extensive planning and goal setting was needed to run two three-week sessions at two different sites.

An ongoing dialog, sometimes using storyboards, reviewed the accomplishments of the day and assigned tasks for the next day. The short amount of time to go from story to script to play forced some realistic parameters. For example, the students wanted to build elaborate scenery, but compromised with less scenery to fit the three-week schedule.

Plays were reduced to four or five pages each and were adapted to the students' ability levels. For example, story boards with illustrations and speech balloons were used to keep track of the script for those students who had difficulty reading. Scenery, a potential obstacle for students in wheelchairs, was suspended from the ceiling and thus presented no barriers to navigate. And the crowning glory for any Thespians, the final production was videotaped and a segment was shown on Public Television.

 "Art: The Creative Way to Expand Vocabulary and Practice Decision Making.
Beverly Levett Gerber , Professor of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University, described ways that art encourages students to become independent decision makers. To illustrate, hands-on activities helped participants become aware of the ongoing, countless opportunities for independent decision making throughout the art process. Decisions included the choice of line (for example, short or long, fat or thin, heavy or light, straight or wiggly, whole or dotted, etc.), color, shape, and composition. These choices are often made without recognition that a decision making process is going on and teachers may overlook the hard work that is taking place.

Gerber encouraged teachers to take advantage of the vocabulary building possibilities inherent in the materials and processes used in art. Another hands-on activity directed participants to develop long vocabulary lists that described common, everyday materials used in art. The vocabulary building possibilities soon became apparent as one word descriptions grew to twenty or thirty vocabulary words.

 Mary Louise Hooper , Associate Professor of Education at York College, York, PA, described the "Literacy Through the Arts" program for children with dyslexia. Her session, "Literacy Through the Arts: A program for Dyslexic Children," described an interdisciplinary program that reached children who had not achieved literacy through traditional auditory and visual teaching methods. The arts added kinesthetic and tactile modalities to help the children improve their language skills. The Literacy Through the Arts program helps to generate the reception, retention, and expression of language.

 "A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions (though those are its raw materials) but of intelligence, skill, taste. proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline." Evelyn Waugh

POSTER SESSIONS:

The "I Can Move" creative movement program was developed to encourage students with and without disabities to work together in inclusive settings. Videotapes were shown throughout the poster session, "Creative Movement for Children with Differing Abilities in Inclusive and Noninclusive Settings," by Carol Russell who is both Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Emporia State University, Emporia, KS, and mother of two of the students featured in the videotapes. The creative movement program was really a family project as Carol's husband also participated in the filming. In fact, the whole family attended the convention and shared information about the "I Can Move" program.

 Karenlee Alexander , Professor of Education at Bemidji State University, MN, described an alternative to traditional verbal assessment in her poster session, " Assessment of Higher Order/Original Thinking Through Art." Alexander developed a testing instrument that uses students' drawings to better understand their strengths and weaknesses. Her samples demonstrated a range of student drawing responses and illustrated a non-verbal method for understanding students from diverse cultures.

Drama, with props and costumes, was used to teach young children how to work together in a group. Deanne Willie , a special education teacher in Salt Lake City, UT, used her poster presentation, "Let's Play Flower, Hamburger, Ice Cream, and Pizza Shop!" to describe how her children learned and were excited by role plays. Her handouts, shaped like little buildings, were quickly snatched up by fellow teachers. (Thank goodness for sign-up sheets for extra copies.)

B.G.

Our fourth meeting of the Special Interest Group for Teachers of the Arts was held on Thursday, April 10th at the Marriott, the CEC Convention Headquarters hotel. Despite the fact that many people did not see the meeting announcement in the convention program and that the room designation was incorrect, persistent people still got together. Our group was a diverse one that represented visual arts, creative movement, music, and the P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education, a foundation that advocates the arts for special education students.

Introductions provided an opportunity to hear more about each others' activities. Several goals were reiterated for the Special Interest Group: to encourage more arts related presentations at CEC; to make more special education teachers aware of the value of the arts for their students; and to share information from CEC and NAEA through this newsletter.

The discussion then turned to the Getty Education Institute for the Arts and its curriculum for art education. While Getty curriculum recommendations (teaching aesthetics, art history and art criticism) have caused rifts within the art education community, they are new to most special educators. Unfortunately the time to cover the areas of the curriculum listed above reduces time for hands-on studio (art room) experiences. Special educators should be alerted to this crucial aspect of the Getty recommendations. Our students need the opportunities for creative learning they gain through hands-on art experiences. The success, pride, and joy achieved through hands-on, studio/art room lessons is less likely when art becomes more reading, history, or math, problem areas for special education students.

Please plan to attend our fifth Special Interest Group for Teachers of the Arts on Thursday, April 16th from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the Hilton Hotel. Information about the room and exact location will be in the CEC program (under "CEC Meetings" in the "Information" section in the front of the program) and on the daily schedule of events on the Hilton Hotel's television monitors.

B.G.

In contrast to the eight presentations at CEC, there were at least fifteen presentations on art for students with disabilities at NAEA and all focused on the visual arts (CEC presentations include both visual and performing arts). The topics ranged from collaboration between art and special education teachers, to inclusive art classrooms, and museum programs for students with disabilities. (We were not able to attend all of the presentations, a mixed blessing because it indicates an increased number, and apologize to the session leaders we missed .)

Adrienne Hunter , a teacher of alternative education in Pittsburgh, PA, shared information and slides of her work with at-risk, in-crisis, and/or incarcerated youth to a packed room of teachers who filled the seats, floor area, and any spot along the wall that could squeeze in another person. Her presentation, "The Holistic Approach to Art: A Healing Ground for Troubled Youth," described the difficult, complicated lives led by many of her students. Hunter shared the many ways she met her students' needs and prevented the classroom from becoming "a battleground." Her methods ranged from a recognition that not only were the students in gangs, but that the gangs had their own colors. Therefore, colors were not neutral. Hunter used gray clay and a step-by-step approach to teach students to model faces or heads. Some students modeled memorial tributes to deceased friends and family members.

The healing aspects of Hunter's classes were evident in slides of the students' art. Students were shown creating a "Peace Book" of poems and art work, later used as designs for tee-shirts that they proudly wore. There were "log cabin" quilts, designed and sewn by the students and later donated to children with AIDS. Hunter stressed the importance of carefully listening to the students to recognize when a student is having a tough day and can help by redirecting their anger (wedging clay, for example). Hunter also tries to "factor out failure." She suggested that teachers "think out the problem areas and do something else. Build the lesson for success."

"What to Do with Special Education Students in Art" drew a large crowd. Art teachers agreed when Kenneth Riddell , art teacher and art therapist in the Northside Independent School District of San Antonio, TX, said, "Art teachers are not prepared to work with special education students." He also stated that, "special education individuals talk in letters." He pointed out the need for more information about special education and used overheads to review some of the "letters," the many acronyms associated with special education.
Riddell then shared some of his teaching strategies. Among the many practical suggestions were the following: organizing class time so there is little time left over at the end of the period rather than "having the student running around"; organizing lessons into as few steps as possible (four steps is Riddell's choice); asking lots of questions that require a response; and to be willing to use a different project for special education students in the class. He described students who are afraid that they are doing something wrong and stressed the teacher's need to be supportive. Sometimes Riddell uses music to "sooth" his students.

Collaboration linked the university, an art education student teacher, and a special education teacher of sixth grade students with developmental disabilities. Janet Federenko, Professor of Art Education at the University of Toledo, OH, shared a familiar double dilemma, "Special education teachers are not prepared to use art in their classes and art teachers are not prepared to use art in a curriculum based on special education." "Integrating Art in the Special Education Curriculum through Collaboration" described the curriculum that resulted from a collaboration between the university and school. First, procedures were established to ensure that everyone was involved in curricular decisions. Next, the curriculum had to relate to the subjects the students were taking, math (money values), social studies, and health.

The collaboration resulted in an enriched curriculum and a demonstration that art can respond to special education students' learning needs. Students played a game to assign monetary values to contemporary art forms. The value was based on the time the students estimated was needed to create the artwork. A follow-up activity led the students to use textures, patterns, and printing techniques to design their own money or "home made cash." Community walks taught students to locate and appreciate architectural details in their own neighborhood, a previously unnoticed gargoyle on the school building for example, and to access nearby art resources. Another strength of the collaborative process was that it removed the separation of the "ivory tower." Instead, it was "peers working together."

Peter Geisser described his work as art teacher at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf in his presentation, "How Deaf Children See Impacts on Visual Literacy." Geisser dispelled the myth that, "Deaf people see better because they are deaf." In fact, he said that children who are deaf often have language acquisition problems that intefere with their visual imagery. Geisser described the methods used at his school to interweave art and language by blending subject units and art skills. Field trips provided "an appreciation of the visual world and gave students words of description." Students visited museums to see real objects and to describe and relate them to their units on the Oddysey and Trojan Horse, Babylonian lions, and Egyptian mummies. When visiting museums, Geisser does suggest that, "Signing should not be done too near paintings because the security people get upset."
Slides showed how the units developed into a collaboration of older and younger children as they constucted a thirteen-foot Trojan horse for one unit and six-inch ceramic tiles for another. The units also provided opportunities for the students to teach others. In fact the ceramic tiles project expanded to produce over 10,000 tiles made by students from all over the state. The ceramic tiles now decorate the Museum of Art, hospitals, and Providence's Riverwalk.

Doris Guay noted that her experience as a Consultant for the Ohio State Department of Education and now as Professor of Art Education at Kent State University, Kent, OH, has provided her with the opportunity, "to learn from teachers and to share that expertise from one classroom to another." Guay used her presentation, "Successful Inclusion and Proactive Teaching," to offer still another layer of sharing. Guay stressed the need for teachers to be proactive and to become involved in process and planning decisions that occur when setting up an inclusive classroom. She also shared a list of competencies to help teachers respond to students of diverse needs. The list included: recognizing and celebrating individual differences; providing developmentally appropriate learning experiences; and understanding where the next steps are going. Guay noted that the classroom system benefits when clearly established boundaries inform students what is and what is not allowed, and when the teacher pays close attention to transitions. A "predictable structure" or consistency is an important way to reduce students' anxiety levels. Guay advocated that teachers empower students by welcoming their suggestions and expecting them to model appropriate behaviors. She described some of the successful methods she had observed teachers using in their classrooms. For example, Claudia, used two "buddies" at a table, rather than one, to assist a special education student. Students who needed computer help in Ken's class were sent to another student for assistance. The student had good computer skills and just happened to have Down Syndrome.

"Assume nothing" should be the golden rule when teaching special education students. Beverly Levett Gerber , professor of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University, suggested a way to better understand special education students, "think like a special educator." Her presentation, "Troubleshooting an Art Lesson for Special Education Students," acknowledged that the students' wide range of learning and/or behavioral challenges require a hard look at the lesson. Gerber focused on three areas, so mundane they are easily overlooked, that have the potential to doom a lesson to failure: (1) the materials; (2) the vocabulary; and (3) the directions. The need for troubleshooting quickly becomes apparent when printing inks bead up on a styrofoam tray, or a lesson disintegrates because students did not understand the word "cylinder," or students make piles of paper scraps instead of shapes. Gerber emphasized that troubleshooting should be done during the planning stages of the lesson. There is no magic, but anticipating the problems that may occur often prevents them from becoming a reality.

Sonia Novy showed a videotape of the Lane Center School in Spring, Texas, a magnet school for special education children with severe and profound disabilities. Her presentation, "Computers and Special Populations," described ways to adapt the use of computers to the school's population. A variety of materials were used to accommodate to the tight or loose hand grips of the students. Novy showed samples of Orthoplast, a splinting material, that can be softened in hot water and molded to fit a student's hand, and common pipe insulation foam for use with students who hold their hands in a tight clench. Novy also showed a videotape, "Beyond the Limits," that showed multi-handicapped students engaged in a variety of art experiences.

"Calder's Art Work Stretches Its Line" described a special program designed with the Indianapolis Children's Museum for children with disabilities. Sharon Pollack , Indiana State University at Terre Haute, cited statistics to show that most art teachers have had no training to work with special education populations and many art teachers are self-taught. To provide experience with special populations, Pollack had her university students develop instructional materials that would dove-tail with the Children's Museum's exhibit on Alexander Calder.
The university students used Calder's shapes and colors to help children of varied abilities to develop their own Calder inspired art. They used the books and videotapes about Calder that were available at work stations around the exhibition. Then the children created their own "Calders" from shapes in a variety of materials: colored paper, magnetic shapes, Tubers and Zots, and sticker paper.

B.G.

Collaboration was a key word in a museum education training program, "Training in Museum Education for Visitors with Special Needs," described by Lisa Abia-Smith . The program is the first of its kind and uses the resources of Buffalo State College and an art museum to teach art education graduate students to work with people with special needs. Ms. Abia-Smith reminded museum educators that "part of your public is disabled." She provided examples of how the Buffalo museum is now being used with children with E/BD (emotionally/behaviorally disturbed) for therapy and is also used with youth with visual and physical handicaps. She said the greatest challenge was to work with the curatorial staff in adapting facilities; in, for example, increasing the font size of display labels and making displays at eye level. Even the composition of docent training was changing. Teenagers have been found to be more successful docents with children with E/BD. This is clearly a "win-win" program. Museum attendance is increasing and the museum is a resource for IEP (Individual Education Program) needs.

Exceptional education was also addressed in a presentation, "Holding On and Seeing It Through in a Gifted Art Program for Upper Elementary Students," about fifth and sixth grade students enrolled in a gifted art class in rural Iowa. Educator Lisa Schoenfielder read a sensitive account about her experiences with a student who labored for a period of weeks on a single drawing. Schoenfelder challenged the traditional structure of education by suggesting that children need sustained periods of time to gain confidence and commitment to their work.

The content of another presentation easily related to the "affective" or realm of emotions/feelings in special education. Theresa Marche used the results of her dissertaton, "The Persistence of Affective Memory," to examine the history of change in an art program in a suburban southern Pennsylvania school district from 1929 to 1992. Marche summarized in her handout, "the one thing respondents most wanted to do was to tell stories about the people, places, and human events that played a part in their histories."

"Specific content memories were linked to strong emotions." "Content may be what is taught: from human interaction comes what is learned and remembered." Marche concludes, "The current debate about art education content may be a misplaced focus...Perhaps the proper place of lesson content is to be the framework or focus around which inquiry, activities, and human interactions can occur. From those interactions arise the affective side of education that students retain from their classroom experiences."

 Miwon Choe accompanied Marche by sharing her analysis of affective memory based on her teaching experiences with an enrichment program for fifth and sixth grade students with high artistic abilities in Indiana. Choe believes that the affective memory is the hidden curriculum behind the interaction between child-centered and subject-centered curricula. Her students evaluated the program and revealed that they had learned through group projects to work together. They had learned that research takes time, and they learned that they could do it, or in their words: "I did it! I did It!"

The spirit of New Orleans was embodied in a presentation by Barbara R. Bridges who shared her slides of New Orleans Mardi Gras masks. Masks as a rich source of interdisciplinary curriculum were discussed and the universality of the Mardi Gras masks demonstrated parallels with masks from other times and cultures. Bridges stressed the rich implications of mask-making: masks may be personal symbols of the self or alter-egos; they may be laced with political statements and safely make fun of the elite. Bridges concluded with speculation about the psychological need for ritualistic safety valves and alternatives to gang warfare.

K.A.

The P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education will be holding the first national conference on art education for special education students . In its continuing effort to encourage the use of art with special education students, the Moss Foundation continues to offer a $10,000 annual National Teacher Award for Advancing Special Education Through Art. Descriptions of both the conference and the award follow, but first some background information.

Pat Buckley Moss is an artist who has recently expanded her efforts to enrich the lives of children experiencing difficulties in school. As a student with dyslexia, she experienced first-hand the frustrations and failures that come with learning disabilities. Happily, her art talents surmounted her reading disabilities and developed into a successful career. Over 20,000 people have not only become collectors of the artwork of P. Buckley Moss but have also joined the P. Buckley Moss Society and the A.C.T. (Adults and Children Together) Program as volunteers in the schools.

In 1995, The P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education was established to help develop and promote ways to integrate art into general and special education programs. Brian Carroll, an Educational Specialist at the Council for Exceptional Children's national headquarters, was hired to be the Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation. Under Brian Carroll's leadership, the Foundation has planned its first annual conference, "The Creative Mind: Advancing Special Education Through the Arts." It is the first time a conference combines the knowledge and skills of special educators who focus on the arts and art educators who focus on special education students . The conference features both practitioners in the schools and university faculty who work directly with teachers in the schools.

 "The Creative Mind: Advancing Special Education Though the Arts" conference will be held at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia from Friday, June 19th to Sunday, June 21st, 1998. It will include speakers from special education and art education, National Very Special Arts, Harvard's Project Zero - Multiple Intelligences, arts-related multi-media instruction, and exhibits and vendors that focus on art for special education students. More information can be obtained from the P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education; 601 Shenandoah Drive: Suite 1B; Waynesboro, VA 22980: (540)932-1728: FAX (540)949-8408; Web: www.mossfoundation.org

The fourth annual National Teacher Award for Advancing Special Education Through Art is intended to recognize the creative strategies used by teachers to integrate learning and the arts for students with disabilities. The Moss Foundation hopes to encourage the use of innovative and effective teaching approaches by awarding $5,000 to the winner and $5,000 to the teacher's school for new or existing visual/performing arts programs for students with learning barriers. The Moss Foundation also awards three second place awards of $500 each with an equal amount given to each school. More information and applications for the award can be obtained from the address, phone, fax, and e-mail information above.

"My first thought about art, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy." John Updike

SED/Arts Organization   |   SED/Arts References   |   NAEA Special Needs Issues Group   |  CEC Special Interest Group for Teachers of the Arts