Mark Schubert is an educator administrator and music critic. He serves as director of the education programs of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in this capacity. He directs a large-scale program in New York's Elementary and secondary schools, which draws upon the artistic resources of all the Lincoln Center member institutions recently Mark Schubert spoke to a group of Minnesota Educators at the Society of Fine Arts Park complex in Minneapolis. His subject was a provocative one for the arts groups and for the Educators and talkin about the Arts and education to dealing in sort of generalities. Nobody's against the Arts and everybody's for the Arts. I've never yet met an educator who said I think we are too terrible and I've met a lot of Educators. The question is what really is the relationship between the Arts and education.And it is true that I am speaking to you here today as a representative of an Arts institution, but I want you to know that I really spent a lot of big hunk of my life worrying about the problems of schools and kids and meeting and talking with a lot of people who are very thoughtful on this subject. So I feel that I have some possibility of speaking on both sides of the fence and I'd like to try and do that today. I thought that if I just very Briefly summarize what Lincoln Setters struggle has been that this might be a good way to get into the subject and I use the word struggle advisedly.Because the business of affecting really meaningful links between an Arts institution or conglomerate of Arts institutions and a set of schools is a very very difficult business. And let me just begin at the beginning if I may I think it's important to discuss this now because I think that this is a time in the history of the country when we're beginning to think about the values that that maybe in the Arts as far as kids and teachers are concerned. I think it's important in terms of the world around us about the quality of life and all these Grand phrases that the that one hears. So I think this money problems and political problems and international Anis and all that notwithstanding. I think this is more than that more than ever makes it a time when we should think about these things very seriously. Lincoln Center just to do a quick historical review for you. If I may is like this one a Federation of Institutions there eight of them and if they're coordinating problems between the institutions here. I assure you that at Lincoln Center they go up by geometric progression. They were horrendous. They came together. However in a number of ways, first of all, they all moved into buildings in one location and second of all, it was a really major commitment made on the part of the trustees do education. Now this is a very easy thing to say almost every Museum. I suppose this one to Metropolitan in New York certainly has it is a plaque somewhere that says this institution is dedicated to whatever it is always wind up with education. But the people who had who instinctively felt that this was an important factor in the life of an institution naturally could not have also at the same time worried about what this really implied and what kind even what kind of education in the Arts an institution could or should take on. I was like to think of Education the Arts is falling into three principal categories then elaborated this point he referred to Professional Training the education and apprenticeship of the professional musician the choreographer the sculptor the actor then he referred to young people and adults who have a particular interest in the Arts and gravitate towards them naturally, but the group who gets shortchanged turned off actually excluded from involvement in the Arts is the large group of students and adults who have little experience little training or exposure to Arts as part of their lives Mr. Schubert claims. This is 95% of the population and they are of great concern to him. The frightening thing is to me at least that probably in the latter category is about 95% of the population. I think this is a pretty safe guess. The 95% of the population really have very little if any contact with what we discussed what we considered to be the Arts. So that when I went to Lincoln Center went and met with my trustees and others with whom I was involved in the end the constituents the member institutions the set of the Opera the Philharmonic the Juilliard School the theater and so far we felt that the first objective that we should have was reaching this 95% of the population and finding some way of establishing a meaningful link between the Arts institutions and the people at Lincoln Center represented and this particular public. Now this was back in 1960 this real actually began before the first building at the center was open. And it's hard considering the sophistication of Arts programs in some communities such as this one. It's hard to visualize how almost unknown this kind of activity really was the reaching out. The really trying to establish a relationship with schools and we began with our program the way most are students in Performing Arts institutions. Did we have programs at toward the school's we had Opera groups that went in the school auditorium. We had some chamber music groups. We had small theater companies. We brought students to the center of to attend performances. And what we found in the fact was that in schools where they were very strong Arts programs or when are student audiences will made up of students who are highly motivated towards the Arts at these programs were quite well that in General Lee they were affected with varying degrees of Effectiveness, but generally they work for the well, but in schools, where are the words little if any meaningful instruction in the Arts and where this whole area of human experience was unknown and not dealt with we were frankly a disaster. I remember once myself I went to a performance in a school up in the Bronx and it was a senior high school in the one of our small touring Opera Company from the Metropolitan was putting on a performance of I think it was Mozart's Cosi Fan tutte in a kind of condensed version. And I sort of sitting in the back row and I observed a great big hulking senior. So I was sneaking out of the auditorium and one of the teachers grabbed him and said no. No, you don't he said if I can stand this you can This is not my happiest day at Lincoln Center. Anyway, so we begin to recognize something which is now I think quite obvious to anybody engaged in this activity in that is that you really have to sit down and talk to the schools and talk to Educators and get them involved in this process. So we established a relationship Owen the second thing the very important thing that occurred as long that time. This is without 1964 if we been at it for three or four years. Was that everything was coming in from outside? Lincoln Center wanted its artists to appear in the school. So you call up the school and say hey great news about not for company for in principle says fine. It was no real commitment on the part of the school school was getting something for nothing. It was big glamorous Lincoln Center coming into poor little PS what not and giving away at Services. The school was not involved in any way in the content or the planning of the program. It had no relationship whatever to the curriculum of the school to the study program of the school and it was an event. It was in Richmond. It was a frill it was an extra an added attraction perfectly good nothing wrong with it, but it didn't do anything and what I would call a genuinely educated set so we formed some pretty strong alliances with a school with the school system starting with our own Commissioner of Education in the state of New York. Send James Allen and with his successor. Joe Nyquist and became really a part of the school system in the state of New York. We also established. I'm working relationships with the City Board of Education. And we established the fact that the schools were going to pay extra set a proportion of the cost of every single service that we provide into the schools. And that proportion is about and ranges between 50 and 60% the other half of the money. We raised from the private sector foundations from corporations and individuals who are especially interested in this aspect of our work, but the input of school funding into the program was terribly important. First of all, that made it possible to expand it. So you can begin to reach a substantial number of proportion of the school population. But more importantly it changed the sense of value and I think this is this is this is one of the things I feel most strongly about that. It was it became a very tangible symbol of the fact that the services that we provided were important to the school because the school was willing to pay at least part of the cost of those services so that became an extremely important Turning Point as I view it and what and what we were trying to do. However, This sort of new success really brought up a whole new set of questions because we suddenly said gosh, you know, if we're really getting into the teaching business we better be off we clear about. What are we trying to teach? And who are we trying to teach and are we spending our resources both money and human in the best possible way? Should we be dealing with elementary schools with secondary schools with colleges with teacher training institutions? Where should where is the pressure point? Where do we have the best chance of getting our message across? I went to the Carnegie Corporation to get some advice on this subject and they was they suggested that I do is study on this subject. They became very interested in the potential relationship between an Arts institution and a school system be reminded several years ago, and we made a lot of progress since then. And I did the study that Ed Stein referred to earlier and in a minute. I'll tell you why it was cool the hunting of the squiggle if you could stand it, but the out of the study to very important to us, very significant things emerged one was a rethinking of goals are really what we were trying to teach now. I'm going to read you some words with the permission of the author me and I apologize for doing so but I want to emphasize the fact that the words are mine, but the thoughts are the composite thoughts of a number of people both Educators and artists who have thought long and deeply on this question. It's a couple of pages but I really would like to read it because I think it says as clearly as I can say it what I think the goals in this kind of program in this kind of efforts have to patch should be at least from my point of view. And it runs something like this. It said we agreed that education programs maintained by Arts institutions should hold as their first objection objective the development among young people of the ability to perceive and understand the aesthetic experience. And this thought is not quite so innocent as it sounds for it implies a drastic shift in emphasis from the teaching of a specific literature or mode of artistic expression or art object to using these various Arts experiences to teach a young person as William Schuman the composer once described it to see when he looks and here when he listens in other words. The objective is not necessarily to teach young people to love Braum's or Reubens or Pinder or balancing but to help them to hear and to see or more importantly to want to see and to want to hear now this is hardly a new thought but in terms of the objectives of an Arts institution it maybe a theater or an orchestra or an opera company or a museum is quite naturally concerned with the young primarily as future patrons or supporters a concern which Springs not only from the need for contributors and ticket buyers, but also from Deep convictions about the value of their art to society. It's not unnatural that educational programs. They maintain are designed primarily to educate about the specific subject matter you teach the play the symphony the Opera of the painting. What is suggested here is the need to go to more fundamental matters into focus on perception and understanding as goals except accepting the fact that the young person may wind up buying a ticket to that particular theater or may instead turned other kinds of Arts experiences in response to his Newfound sensibilities. Young people do not now. Enjoy the freedom or have the wherewithal to make this determination. One of the major goals of American Education it seems to me is to give young people the opportunity to encounter at least the basic elements of virtually every area of human knowledge and understanding young people are required to study mathematics The Sciences history languages not because they are necessarily to become mathematicians scientists his star and linguist, but in order to present them with an opportunity to taste and experienced enough so that they can make an informed choice or decision as to whether and how far to pursue these subjects. Not so with the Arts or for that matter the whole area of the senses. As this and other Studies have clearly shown only a small proportion of Americans encounter the Arts in any meaningful way during their formative years and very little of even this big your encounter is helpful in developing perception or true appreciation. American education programs in the Arts established highly organized sets of values techniques and procedures based on experiences and achievements of the past which are then doled out to young people in measured doses without any regard for the individual experiences and sensibilities of the recipient. Inevitably the Arts the young person Encounters in his education there for how little of any connection with his own feelings and visions and consequently appeared to be in comprehensible repellent or just plain boring for unfortunately Arts programs fail to recognize that every young person brings to school some sort of experience and perception such as deciding what color suit to wear and that this experience is not something to be super superseded by a superior or more sophisticated code of judgments, but rather represents a basic human instinct to be build a pond and developed. It should be noted to that the so-called traditional disciplines and education unlike the Arts are taught partly because it is assumed that the process of acquiring them is in itself education to put it another way no parent would claim that his child was wasting his time studying mathematics If the child failed to become a mathematician in later life, you would understand that the process of studying mathematics the discipline of the learning process was clearly educated to the whole human being and as such would develop the child's ability to cope more effectively with the problems of life not so with the arts arts education for the gifted child is more or less acceptable since there's always a chance to vocational success, but for the unmotivated child the less demonstrable values of sensitivity and perception are as yet not even remotely considered to be fun. education and the goal suggested here dealing as they do with perception and basic understanding rather than when the van with the teaching of a specific body of literature require internet a broader interpretation of what is meant by our A particularly Troublesome question to many artists and arts institutions totally committed to a single body of Repertory in a single cultural heritage or tradition. But once won't accept the premise that the focus of education programs in the Arts is on the basic matter of perception and understanding of fundamental values this and other difficult questions can be seen in a perspective which renders them less Troublesome, or at least less pressing. For the teaching of these values can be achieved through one kind of art or through many. Unfortunately, most education programs in the Arts stressed the lace less basic and less Essential Elements, which are peculiar to a single artistic tradition or discipline the story of the Opera the form of the symphony the history of the ballet are stressed the nature of sound the way an artist works the function of Rhythm the arrangement of movement in space are not consequently. It must be made clear that it should not be the Arts institutions mission to convert people to its own kind of art or to demonstrate that one kind of art is better than another or the high art is more cultural info card. It is it is the Arts institutions Mission however to teach values and to demonstrate the M&M elements found in all kinds of genuine creativity expressivity Clarity warm. Persuasiveness emotional power Unity consistency and so forth. These are the qualities to be found everywhere in our and in many different kinds of artistic expression. The ability to recognize these values is the ascent is the essence of aesthetic perception or awareness and should in my judgment at least be the first the first goal of all education programs in the Arts now in there, of course, I was speaking about education in the arts for this the 95% of young people in the in the country and I think it's a critical point to be that we have to be terribly clear about what our goals are and what we're trying to achieve and in this Clarity of goals. I think the educator has a key role to play. Because really were talking about I think is the matter of basic human skills. I think that the ability to perceive is as basic human skill as reading or all the other things were concerned about and in fact, I think that this is why it is always been that is because it in because he died because he has always been on the art object on the painting of the Symphony of the story, but it's very difficult to Educators to perceive the essentialness of this to the it to education and it may be why it may be one of the reasons why the Arts remain such a low priority item in education all over the country and we must not kid ourselves despite some magnificent progress has been made the whole area. That senses is something which mine large is knocked out with in the school curriculum. I also feel that if we can arrive and find ways of achieving this and using in the woods using the Arts rather than teaching to the Arts using the Arts to get at this more fundamental matter of awareness or perception that then these mad the question of priorities will begin to take on a different look and institutions such as this one will then assume their rightful place as important resources in the education of young people. Now the impact of all of this on kids and teachers is something very few. People know about there's been some research but not a great deal done on what actually crystal is it really possible to teach a person or help a young person to become more aware to explore his own sensitivities. Most people agree that it can be done and there are many instances where it has been done. And what is fascinating to me is the impact of this kind of awareness or on everything else that the child does. I'm the life of the school on how the classroom looks On how other subject matter is treated and most importantly at all of all on the motivation of a child. I hesitated to to talk about certain isolated experiences. We've had with kids with reading disabilities who threw this kinds of Hands-On experiences with the with the Arts have really changed in their in their whole attitude towards the learning process. I believe it. I'm not prepared to say it publicly after I consider myself in the family here because it has never been proved but I believe it very strongly and I think there is a whole new vein of of potential here, which is never really been tapped. Now, this is a very difficult. This is all sort of philosophical and I apologize for that cuz I promised you that I would try and be specific. Let me go from the most General to the most specific to try and give you some idea how in the Performing Arts the kinds of things that we have done, which seemed to have the greatest promise of success. For example, I remember It was a I should mention that that one of the first steps we took was to recruit and train a group of artists dancers actors theater directors filmmakers who were interested in working with young people, but had no skills in this direction and we had some great intensive training programs with Educators and will experience artist to give them to put in their hand certain skills and how to deal with these problems with kids. And one of these artists when it's an example comes to mind and I don't know whether it would be as persuasive to you as it was to me, but I was very impressed by that. She was a dancer and she was confronted with a gang of 25 or so high school kids in a boys high school. And she asked them if they play basketball and they admitted as how they did so he's she said, okay, let's let's have a basketball teams whole bunch of kids got up. The basketball team went and got the basketball and this dance. Is that okay now go ahead and play basketball class happen to be taking place in the gym. So they were playing basketball shooting baskets and what not and she said, okay now hold it after about a minute should now you were playing basketball for 1 minute. How many of you remember what you did what what happened during that minute? Can you reconstruct? What you actually did so the kids. So as long as he I was here in our you were there and they began reconstructing what had actually happened and they finally got it more or less figured out. She said, okay now I want to do it again by going to take away the basketball. So they went to the whole exercise without the basketball and they were first completely bewildered by the whole thing. But finally they caught on and they were doing a pretty good mom job and they they sort of figured that out shit. Okay now shut I'm not a basketball player. But I'm a dancer and I want to see if I can make you if I can arrange you in some different ways to make what you do more interesting to me. So in effect, she choreographed them in a basketball sequence such as it was she said after it was quite good dance, but rather poor basketball, which I can understand what the point was and this is one so silly little isolated instance, but the point was those kids will never look at people moving in space in the same way. Another was they were aware of a totally new aspect of an aspect of human behavior. They literally had never thought about before and they were fascinated by it. And after the class they kept they kept on doing it. They were so fascinated by it. It was another instance. I remember where a composer who is working with a class of kids. Finally got them to be absolutely quiet and said now, why do you hear we're going to be absolutely quiet for one minute. I want to know what you hear. Tell the absolute quiet Mesa, but we hear the car honk honk car horn honking and then he said I hear somebody walking down the hall and I hear a telephone or whatever. She said okay. Now, what did you hear at 7:30 this morning? The first this was very confusing should not think back. What were you hearing at 7 cuz I want you to be absolutely quiet and just think about what you were really hearing at 7:30 this morning. And so one of the chi I am I remember my mother yelling at me. And another one said that I remember there was a auto crash down the corner or whatever. So they began recording this he said, okay now think of can you think without making a sound can you think of the last piece of music you heard? so then they began sort of seeing Tunes inside their heads without making a sign of the faster we met that was that this was a whole introduction to the notion of the inner ear the idea of a really of of the of listening and hearing as an as it as a mental process rather than always as a physical thing so that they became aware of sound is something you think about and talk about and that too and then we've developed a whole string of meat are literally dozens and dozens and dozens of this kind of experience which get at this very fundamental question of these very fundamental human capacities, which most kids are unaware that they have. Sew-in from that obviously you go on a very specific much more sophisticated kinds of things and then after this Hands-On kind of thing you then get involved with the cognitive aspect of being talked about. Okay, you did the basketball game. Here's a a felony Petty ba who choreographed the ballet and where I'm going to see a film of this Valley and see if you can figure out how he arranged whatever so that you get into what used to be called art appreciation in a very realistic way as far as the kids are concerned and something which means something to them because it grows out of their experience and it's not on the light it and it's not unreasonable and it's not a trick. So that then later on after this is been going on over. Of time you then take the young person to a performance and he's going to see that performance in a totally different way and he's going to look at a picture in a totally different way to not all we have are failures. But the proportion of the point I was really trying to make is that the proportion of kids who respond to this kind of thing I get something from it is far larger than the 95% left in the 5% of the kids who who are now really involved in the sky. I didn't mean to dwell on that so long, but I wanted to try and be specific about one thing because it's a very difficult subject to discuss without getting into too many windy generalities. Anyway, this is the second thing that so out of that the study that we did Kami these all these thoughts that a whole new approach with much of which I'm sure is not new to you, but it's second thing came out of it. And that was the notion that if Arts institution such as Lincoln Center or such as this one are going to get into the business of providing these kinds of services to schools and making these kinds of linkages they have to be organized and it's a totally different way and their sense of priority has to change their order priority has to change and that's why I was particularly happy to hear this very major commitment that was made just here this afternoon. I think it's very important. Because you know what? It is. Now the symphony the kids get to hear the Symphony of their tickets leftover basically are there few children's concerts and so forth Arts administrators teachers trainers of teachers kids school administrators school board members and Subways Mona Lisa began making diagrams of all these people running in and out of experience to somebody that my God that looks like a swig on that's where the name came from in any event. This was what we are planning to do rather specifically is where we are now working in some very intensive programs in three demonstration sites in this might be a pattern that could conceivably be of interest to you hear that we're pulling together teams. We party mutteem of the Arts institution name the Lincoln Center. A teacher training institution and a school district and their three of these we formed alliances with three teacher training institutions and three different School District 2 in New York City and one outside of New York City to get into the whole business of providing workshops for teachers, which would be which teachers would get graduate credit from teacher training institution using our Arts Resorts people teaching pre-service kids before they go into the schools by prearrangement with a school district so that so that when this is when the orientation programme in the in-service and pre-service education programs are completed probably a semester or perhaps longer the school will already be committed to having those teams of people actually carry out some programs in the classroom and at the center and I'm hopeful this is it is a bad idea. It may work at may not I'm so far the response to it is Very encouraging and I think we have to find new patterns in new ways of doing this so that the fact of of the existence of great facilities for the Arts such as this one will greatly help in making this kind of linkage possible. One of the measures of the success of this institution is how you and your colleagues and education respond to an end. This is this is no exaggeration because what was said earlier was absolutely true. That if this organization needs it this great complex of Institutions caniform working relationships both financially and programmatically with the school. So this community it will have failed and if you believe in this institution as I know you do I think you have to really take the lead and making this kind of linkage work. I think that we have to begin with the question of priorities because I know that when you begin talkin money with school people as they will the money's got to go to the essentials and the essentials are reading in Southwest understandable I say and I think there a lot of people in end who thought long and hard about this will agree that there is a new priority. And it doesn't have to displace anything else in it enhance has an underlined and makes it more effective and that this whole aesthetic domain the area that senses is a new priority, which I think is going to become and must become accept it and the way the resource for dealing with this whole area is right here and it's got to be made use of and I can sure that it will be at the how it's done administratively fan Ashley. It's go to very very some community community know to school district function the same way as I don't have to tell you and nor do to Arts institutions function in the same way. They're all different but ways can be found and I think that if we have a consensus on goals of what we're trying to do and if we can implant the idea that this whole area of the senses is a high priority item in today's world. It would today's kids and in today's environment. Then I think we're not we're well on our way to success in any event. I apologize for the length of my remarks. It's been a really great pleasure talking with you here today. I hope after what is we trudge around. I'll have a chance to talk with some of you personally, and I'm most grateful for the opportunity of giving of your giving me permission to sing my Aria for you. Thank you. Mark Schubert Director of Education Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts speaking in Minneapolis to teachers principals administrators and planners in Minnesota's education system on the subject of Arts in education. The speech was given at the new Fine Arts Park the remodeled and expanded facilities for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design also the Children's Theatre Company and school. I'm Connie Goldman.