Arts in Education week

In July 2010, the U. S. House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring the week following the second Sunday of September Arts in Education Week. Here’s a list of twenty-five things you and your students can do to make your voice heard. This is just a starting point. We know that you will come up with plenty of ideas too. Feel free to share your ideas below, using the comments feature.

1. Write a letter to your mayor asking him or her to issue a proclamation in honor of Arts Education Week.

2. Give a presentation at a local school board meeting about arts education at your school. Include data on how arts education impacts student academic performance, job skills, and civic engagement.

3. Offer arts-based lessons in other disciplines throughout the week. For example, create an art project that illustrates a math concept or biology lesson, or perform a cutting from a drama about an important historical figure.

4. Hold an arts pep rally featuring student performances in music, drama, and dance, and a gallery of student artwork. Include practical demonstrations in tech theatre skills (costuming, lighting, and sound design), a karaoke session, sketch portraits or pottery basics, and dance lessons.

5. Invite a local touring theatre company to your school and ask them to do a short performance and a post-show Q&A.

6. Tour a high school show to the district’s junior highs and/or middle schools; include opportunities for audiences to participate in the show—crowd scene walk-ons or ensemble dance numbers. Do a demonstration of how backstage scene, costume, and lighting changes are accomplished.

7. Arrange a field trip to see a local theatre production. Seek out support from the local business community, the PTA, and other community arts organizations. Invite parents, teachers, and administrators to attend.

8. Create an Arts Week blog and assign students to research other examples of Arts Week activities taking place elsewhere in the country. Create a list of the best ideas and make plans for incorporating them into the 2012 Arts Week celebration.

9. Have students select and perform scenes from Shakespeare, or another playwright in the public domain. Post the videos to YouTube.

10. Stage theatre scenes throughout your school during the week. Do surprise performances during lunch, in the hallways, and in study hall.

11. Host a talent show for both students and faculty. You never know—the math teacher might be an amazing violinist and maybe the librarian can belt out show tunes.

12. Invite local arts professionals (artists, actors, playwrights, musicians, dancers, directors, etc.) to speak to students. Have them discuss how their own arts education experience affected their life and career.

13. Work with your school’s website editor to showcase the school’s Arts Week activities on the website. Draw attention to your full-year calendar of arts events.

14. Host a “dance-off” competition at a school dance. Encourage students to form a dance “crew” or bring in an already established group they are a part of to compete. Include different styles of dance categories—Broadway, hip hop, modern, classical, etc.

15. Organize a tour to a local nursing home and perform requested favorite show tunes. Afterward, interview residents about their own arts interests.

16. Collaborate with the visual arts department and create a mural that illustrates all the skills used and/or taught through arts education.

17. Offer to present public performances of scenes, dances, and music at local businesses, libraries, or city hall.

18. Assign students to interview teachers, administrators, business people, and legislators who participated in the arts in school. Suggest students ask how the skills they learned in the arts have helped them in their current position. Display their pictures and comments throughout your school.

19. Assemble a committee to research the impact of arts education on students. Post the gathered data throughout the building during the week.

20. Ask alumni how their arts experiences have influenced their lives. Assemble the comments into a booklet and give it to school board members, administrators, local legislators, parents, and business organizations.

21. Send a press release to local media outlets noting Arts Week activities in your school and district. Notify your national partners Americans For the Arts and the Arts Education Partnership, as well.

22. Gather information on celebrities whose participation in school arts programs led to their future success, and post their pictures and documented comments throughout the school. (The celebrity college-commencement speeches excerpted in September issues of Dramatics magazine over the past few years are a good place to start.)

23. Organize a student letter-writing campaign to the editorial pages of local papers that focuses on arts education.

24. Organize a school-wide “This is what the arts mean to me” campaign asking everyone to add a comment to a school-authorized web page. Take the best comments and post them throughout the school.

25. Have your students make a video describing the importance of arts education for the Dramatic Difference campaign, sponsored by EdTA.