Q & A with Sarah Anderberg, director of the CCSESA Arts Initiative

Sarah Anderberg is the director of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association’s Arts Initiative, in which CSBA is a partner. CCSESA and the California Alliance for Arts Education will present the State of the Arts Leadership in Education Conference May 15-16 at the Radisson Hotel in Sacramento. For additional information, contact Cindy Ridley at the CCSESA office in Sacramento.

What's on tap at the State of the Arts Leadership in Education Conference May 15-16 in Sacramento?

The State of the Arts Leadership in Education Conference will bring together educators, administrators, teaching artists, arts organizations and artists with policy-makers, parents and school board members from across the state. Featured speakers include Eric Booth, a nationally recognized author and speaker, and Dr. Katrina Woodworth, senior researcher for SRI International, who will share findings from a recent study entitled "An Unfinished Canvas—Arts Education in California: Taking Stock of Policies and Practices." Gene Diaz, a professor from Lesley University in Boston, will share a new report published by Arts Education Partnership in Washington, D.C., on the teaching arts work force, and Tony Plana, actor from the television hit "Ugly Betty" will be a special invited guest. Participants will be given the opportunity to visit legislators and participate in workshops regarding many exciting topics in arts education.

What role do arts programs play in a child’s education? What sort of impact do you hope the Arts Initiative will have on children’s lives?

A high-quality education in the arts, including the subject areas of dance, music, theater and the visual arts, is an integral component of a comprehensive curriculum. The arts play an essential role in our daily lives and influence expression, creativity and imagination as they relate to the human experience. An understanding and appreciation of the arts, as well as the ability to participate in the arts, are key attributes of an educated person. The arts contribute to children’s education and preparation for life in numerous ways.

For example, the arts:

• enable students to develop a deep understanding of cultures, including America’s diverse heritage and the immense range of cultures across the globe, leading to tolerance and acceptance for others
• foster success in the world of work by cultivating essential capacities such as confidence and self-esteem, problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, organizational capabilities, time management abilities and collaborative and team competencies
• enable students to communicate ideas and feelings through unique expressions in dance, music, theater and visual arts
• and provide opportunities for interdisciplinary learning that increase student motivation and achievement across the curriculum

We are grateful to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for its support of this statewide CCSESA Arts Initiative in an attempt to reinvigorate arts in California public schools. CCSESA is pleased to be partnering with CSBA and other critical partners in this effort. The goal is to strengthen and expand arts education as part of the core curriculum for all students in California. We are working at all levels to advocate for a comprehensive, sequential, standards-based curriculum based on the state of California Visual and Performing Arts Framework.

I know you are passionate about the arts, having served as a theater director, teacher, college professor and an arts administrator. How did you become involved in the arts? What made you decide to pursue a career dedicated to teaching others about the arts?

I am reminded of the motivational and cognitive impact arts learning has on the lives of people of all ages. By providing students with opportunities to learn vocabulary and skills in the arts disciplines (dance, music, theater and visual arts), we are giving our students a means of creative expression and opportunities to learn about historical and cultural contributions—past and current—of artists from around the world. When we help engage students to make critical judgments about works of art, we are opening new worlds of discovery. It has been my experience that students deepen their critical thinking skills when provided learning experiences that help them make connections across the curriculum and study the relationships that emerge from those connections. I like this quote by Kathleen Cushman in "How the Arts Transform Schools": “The arts move you from a culture of answers to a culture of questions.”

What would you say to anyone who believes schools and teachers should focus only on “the basics”: reading, writing, mathematics and test scores?

I would say that the “gateway” skills of reading, writing, and mathematics are vital for a child’s success in our modern society. However, the arts should be seen as part of a comprehensive curriculum. California students deserve a complete curriculum of all subjects, and the arts are listed as core, as legislated in the No Child Left Behind Act. Quality arts learning is not an either/or discussion. We need to think about preparing our students for the 21st century, and that means providing means for quality learning in all the areas of the curriculum. In "Tough Choices or Tough Times: A Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce," produced by the National Center on Education and the Economy, the writers point to the work of the future: “This is a world in which a very high level of preparation in reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, science, literature, history and the arts will be an indispensable foundation for everything. ... It is a world in which comfort with ideas and abstractions is the passport to a good job, in which creativity and innovation are the key to the good life, in which high levels of education—a very different kind of education than most of us had—are going to be the only security there is." A rich curriculum allows for the interdisciplinary connections and foundational skills that will help students excel in the world that is described above.