CEDFA Summit 26:
Building Enduring Fine Arts Programs
Last year, we asked each other, “why do we make art?” Conversations across the presentations and discussion forums for the virtual summit reinforced the importance of answering this elemental question—personally, in classroom practice, and as a community.
For Summit 26, we want to build on that question by asking, “How do we ensure that we keep making art—as individuals, as communities, as a society?”
Thinking about the fine arts through the lens of endurance makes sense at a gut level. The fine arts have been part of human learning and individual and cultural expression for as long as humankind has walked the earth. So, instead of trying to work faster and do more with less, this year we’ll stretch, reach farther, and push ourselves to lay out the building blocks for sustaining fine arts disciplines far into the unknown future. Part of this endurance training involves stacking new knowledge and skills at the individual level. We’ll explore these ideas both for the artist, teacher, and student roles. The second component involves using these new tools to craft school systems that work to establish, cultivate, and sustain fine arts learning indefinitely.
Four anchor sessions will guide the tone and topical alignment of the Summit:
Session 1: Identifying and Using the Keys for Fine Arts Sustainability
Session 2: Establishing Cohesive Vertical Alignment in Fine Arts
Session 3: Building Fine Arts Program Pipelines
Session 4: Integrating the Arts within Campuses and Communities
Aligned Deep Dive Sessions reinforce and help educators apply these concepts within their discipline-specific classroom contexts.
Anchor Session 1: Identifying and Using the Keys for Fine Arts Sustainability
Session 1 introduces the Summit theme, endurance in fine arts—enduring programs, sustainable practices, lifelong learning, passion, and advocacy. As in recent Summits, Session 1 begins at the individual level and breaks the idea of endurance into the following three components that build tenacity in fine arts practice:
Determination
Resilience
Connection
First, building off of last year’s elemental question (why make art?), participants will define their sources of determination. By identifying and documenting their current circles of influence and fleshing out tightly focused action plans, participants will align their determination for excellence in fine arts education to strategic and time-bound goals. Next, participants will assess the obstacles and risks inherent in achieving these goals and learn how to steep themselves in resilience practices. Finally, Session 1 will close out on how to leverage the fine arts’ powerful ability to connect people. These three keys, when harnessed by individual fine arts educators, create the foundation for strong programs.
Deep Dives
For Session 1, the Deep Dives function like strength training for the underlying skills and habits of mind that help ensure individuals cultivate and sustain their fine arts practices throughout their lives.
S1-DD1:
Expanding Determination and Resilience in Fine Arts Disciplines
S1-DD2:
Growing Our Capacity for Sharing Through Fine Arts
Anchor Session 2: Establishing Cohesive Vertical Alignment in Fine Arts
This second anchor session launches from the individual’s goals and action plans and helps establish the most important classroom practices to strengthen. Further, participants will work with their Fine Arts TEKS in a virtual professional learning community (PLC) that connects colleagues across grade-level bands. Together, they will design vertical alignment and scope and sequence documents that squarely plant their programs within the heart of their campuses. Each member will leave with a vertical alignment for their discipline, which they can further refine at their schools. Participants will also look beyond high school and incorporate ideas for K-16 alignments, professional communities, and college, military, and career preparations (CCMP). Finally, Session 2 will create specific supports for rural schools and geographically isolated fine arts educators so that world-class educational opportunities may extend to all Texas students.
Deep Dives
For Session 2, the Deep Dives drill into the Fine Arts TEKS and student needs for each discipline. Participants work together to design a K-12 vertical alignment document and then explore models or strategies that expand the alignment out to support rural schools, postsecondary offerings, and underserved populations.
S2-DD1:
Mapping and Implementing a K-12 Vertical Alignment in Fine Arts Disciplines
S2-DD2:
Expanding Fine Arts Learning to All Community Member
Anchor Session 3: Building Fine Arts Program Pipelines
Once participants have focused on a vertical alignment in terms of student expectations, curricula, and classroom practices, the logical next step is to augment their program pipelines and build sustained interest in fine arts programs. In Session 3, participants will tap into core concepts from marketing to design the most durable program pipelines for fine arts students. In business, the “5 P’s of Marketing” translates to the following ideas: 1) Product, 2) Place, 3) Price, 4) Promotion, and 5) Position. Fine arts administrators, classroom teachers, and teaching artists alike can benefit from dissecting and applying these ideas when building enduring programs.
We often don’t apply business models to what happens in our classrooms, but in the case of building sustainable, long-living, thriving programs, the “5 P’s” can help us identify and capitalize on what differentiates us and marks our success. In this context, Product encompasses the educational experiences students expect from our classes. Most of our definition for this component builds from work in Sessions 1 and 2. The second “P” in marketing, Place, speaks to where a person encounters the product or service—in our case our school communities. Here we look at the physical and cultural environmental factors that help make our classes unique and successful. While you might not think the third “P” of Price factors as heavily into classroom teaching, knowing some cost/benefit basics for our programs can work to our advantage. For instance, there might be opportunities to expand our programs through integration that allows us to tap into other school funding streams or helps to connect local businesses with students for professional opportunities. Often fine arts educators are well-versed in the fourth “P” of Promotion—having to advocate daily for students, resources, and opportunities.
However, even the most ardent fine arts promoter can benefit from linking Promotion with the final “P” of Positioning. This last component in marketing involves knowing where your program stands both in the overall landscape (e.g., in relation to other schools, other fine arts opportunities, non-fine arts programs, foundational academic programs, athletics, community events, etc.) and also in the minds to the people who might engage with your program (i.e., perceptions). Once participants have a sense of how their program is currently “positioned” they can use this knowledge to unify their efforts to move the needle in the direction of enduring success. With this framework in mind, fine arts administrators and educators can examine their current program pipelines and identify areas to enhance.
Deep Dives
In Session 3, the Deep Dives will delve into highly-specific approaches using the “5 P’s” of marketing to build sustainable fine arts program pipelines. Presenters will showcase highly creative approaches and solutions.
S3-DD1:
Understanding and Leveraging Your Fine Arts Program’s Reach
S3-DD2:
Differentiating and Positioning Your Program for Success
Anchor Session 4: Integrating the Arts within Campuses and Communities
Finally, Session 4: Integrating the Arts within Campuses and Communities completes the work from Session 3 on positioning and promoting fine arts classes and programs. This last session addresses fine arts integration opportunities that help embed the arts deep within a campus and community. Like element number 26 (iron), fine arts should permeate the entire learning community. Fine arts educators already know that the arts are deeply enmeshed with successful learning. In this session, they’ll define ways to make this explicit. Participants will explore fine arts integrations within other arts disciplines (e.g., cross disciplinary art, dance, music, and theatre), across and into foundational areas (e.g., music and mathematics, art and science, dance and language, theatre and history, etc.), and integrations that transcend the classroom and serve the wider community (e.g., integrations might involve fine arts and public or social services, fine arts and senior citizens, fine arts and healthcare settings, fine arts and business incubators). The creativity and power unleashed by the fine arts is meant to be shared by all. In fact, weaving the fine arts into the fabric of daily life can be the secret sauce for energized, innovative, and inclusive communities. These types of communities, in turn, ensure that the arts will endure.
Deep Dives
In Session 4, participants will fuse and extend learning from Deep Dives in Session 2 (expanding communities) and Session 3 (reach, differentiation, and positioning). Part of the marathon-like effort of sustaining fine arts programs requires taking a long and broad view of everything surrounding and feeding the creative community. In many towns and cities, K-12 fine arts programs serve central roles in helping people connect across generations and demographics and share cultural experiences together. These final Deep Dives will explore how integrating the fine arts across subjects, within other arts areas, and into unique community spaces, can transform a community into a place where the arts feel as vital to life as air and water.
S4-DD1:
Interdisciplinary Fine Arts Programs and Placemaking
S4-DD2:
Cultivating Creative Communities Inside and Outside the Classroom Walls
Participants who complete CEDFA Summit 26 will learn how to
fuse determination and action in their teaching practices,
design instruction with a goal of aligning skills and content for long-term success,
leverage their program’s unique attributes to advocate and grow within their communities, and
integrate the fine arts into the fabric of society, benefitting all individuals, industries, and environments.
Step-by-step, Summit 26 will serve as the marathon training for building sustainable, enduring, and successful fine arts education programs for the future of all Texans