Welcome to the Fine Arts Educator Coaching Clinics podcast- The podcast that supports art, theatre, dance, and music teachers by sharing instructional trends and exploring perspectives in fine arts education.  I am your host, Eric Sanford.  

Visit our website, FAECC.org to find resources and links to this podcast.  While you are there, follow our socials, and let us know your thoughts on the episode.

Have you ever wondered about the experiences of other fine arts teachers? What troubles do they face?  Are your hardships unique to your own campus or are they universally shared among many fine arts teachers?

Unfortunately, many of these issues come up during end of year teacher evaluations when we get a spotlight on what we’ve done all year, and also what we haven’t done.  

In this episode, I’ll speak on a few of the most common grow points highlighted during those teacher evaluation meetings, and ways you can respond with solutions.  This in no way includes everything or applies to every situation, but they are common.

One Grow point is a lack of collaboration.  Many fine arts teachers become solitary silos, focused on the mountain of work to maintain and promote their fine art discipline.  We get it, it’s not multiple choice tests and a curriculum that’s handed to you.  Fine Art teachers plan trips, performances, school-wide community engagement, manage their budget, order supplies, create awesome t-shirts, plan fundraisers… There is so much more that we do that other teachers don’t worry about.  

Unfortunately, that doesn’t always give us a free pass.  So what are some ways we can collaborate more on campus?  How about joint lesson planning?  Look through the science, social studies, and ELA curriculum scope and sequences.  Get with those teachers to find ways you can provide multiple perspectives all at once.  

What kind of music was popular at the point in history that this famous scientist lived? How did literature and art compare during a certain time period?  Find ways to support students to re-enact key historical events, or create a scene from a novel.  If your class activities can coincide with those moments, your collaboration points will skyrocket. 

This touches a bit on Arts Integration, which is an amazing opportunity for students to learn core academics through the arts.  One collaboration project per semester would be a great student engagement tool, while also giving you the opportunity to reach outside of the fine arts classroom, and low key, do some recruiting for your program.  

Not sure where to start?  Try a few these suggestions:

1. Attend a cross-curricular planning meeting to learn about upcoming projects and units in other content.  

2. Participate in a professional development that focuses on collaboration and interdisciplinary learning.  You could learn strategies to work with other teachers, as well as ways to promote Arts Integration.

3. Building relationships with other teachers is also a great way to spark collaboration.  Not only school events, committees or initiatives, but just eating lunch with other teachers can create opportunities.  

It will require you to leave the comfortable confines of your fine arts room, but it’ll be okay.  

Another common growth point for fine arts teachers is the limited student assessment and evaluation data. 

Let’s face it, math, science, social studies, they have a lot more opportunities for multiple choice tests, summatives, quizzes, kahoots, and everything else.  I have mentioned ways of using similar methods in fine arts classes during previous episodes.  If that wasn’t appealing or you haven’t totally subscribed to that yet, you could propose other forms of assessing students.  

One would be a portfolio assessment. If you have a grading rubric you consistently use as feedback, then you can also monitor and track student growth.  

Many of us rely on performance-based assessments.  I caution you to have multiple forms of this, especially if you must prove or show individual student growth or success.  Ensemble performances are wonderful, but it becomes tricky when using that for individual student grades. Can you without a doubt identify what that student did at the performance?  In some cases, yes!  But sometimes…. Just be careful with that one.

Student self assessments are another way to track progress.  If you institute a weekly journal reflection on the skills students learn, then it becomes a data tracker as well.  

You could also use peer evaluations for students to provide feedback for each other.  

The third growth point we will look at is the planning and organization issues often associated with fine arts teachers.  I totally get this one.  One reason that allowed me to get by without lesson plans for so long is lack of accountability.  No one really bothered me about it until my end of year summative, and it was too late by then. 

Again, Fine Arts teachers have many more responsibilities outside the classroom than other core academic teachers.  I remember when a manager asked me to lesson-plan during my planning period. I’m pretty sure I laughed and pointed at the to-do list for football game prep, marching band practice, beginner band prep, instrument repair, and music production projects.  

Aside from lack of accountability or lack of time, some fine art teachers did not get extensive training in lesson planning.  Let’s face it, many fine arts teachers ended up in a classroom as a second option.  It may not have been their first choice, and that studio artist mentality is still prevalent.  There’s a big difference between facilitating a studio and teaching 5th grade dance.  

So how do we move past those very legitimate reasons to find a solution?

Well, one solution is time management training.  When everything seems like it is a priority, or when nothing seems like a priority, getting training on how to prioritize your time and actions can be a lifesaver.  That’s something that transfers beyond the job.

Another solution is attending a lesson planning professional development.  I’ll go ahead and mention that this podcast will have several episodes on lesson planning in the future, just in case you are looking.  

I laughed when I saw this option - campus provided administrative support.  Most of us don’t get to have a personal assistant, a teaching assistant, or even someone that has time to help us.  What I will suggest is asking for a student aid.  You could delegate some of your tasks to them, freeing a few minutes for more pressing matters.

The last growth I wanted to speak on is a resistance to change.  Change is hard.  We’ve mentioned this before, and saying that does not make it any easier.  Especially if you have a bit of experience and had success with previous instructional techniques or methods.  Not everyone wants to change.  

I remember my goal in the first few years at any campus was to establish an expectation and lessons that I could put on repeat each year.  Having done all the pre-work the previous year, the second, third, and every year beyond should have been much simpler.  

Then something would happen like moving to another district, or taking on a new responsibility, or COVID and virtual learning.  

One thing I do want to say - in every one of my circumstances, hearing this phrase, “resistant to change”, was not meant to be an attack or disrespectful.  It was because my administrator valued and respected my expertise, and they wanted me to continue to develop as a teacher.  

The problem for me was that these comments usually came when I found out about budget cuts or schedule changes.  It made me feel like fine arts was not as important as math, science, or ELA.  And let’s face it - the end of the year is a marathon of sprinting.  From Spring Break until June, it’s just stressful, and busy, and changing - and none of it is a good combination.  

So about change - I would suggest the approach from a curiosity perspective.  If an administrator or evaluator were to mention that “You seem pretty set in your ways,” I would then ask, “Tell me more about how you envision my role.  What changes would you suggest, and how would you implement that?”

One solution I routinely suggest is to make small changes for just one of your classes.  Experiment with a small group, test out new ideas or techniques, and become at ease and familiar with those small changes in one class before rolling it out to all your classes.  

I am reminded of a quote by Woody Allen - “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”  Just because we’ve always done it a certain way doesn’t mean it has to always be that way.  We are some of the most creative minds on the entire campus.  We can find a way.

I do hope these solutions help if you hear any of the grow points in your next end of year summative or other meeting in between.

We look forward to hearing from you- your comments, questions, and suggestions.  Hit us up on our Twitter, at FAECC Host, and visit our website, FAECC.org, for more information.  

Thanks again for listening!  Until next time, Peace and Blessings!