The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of middle school principals regarding the implementation of the arts. Although the New York State Education Department (2015) has mandated arts curriculum into all grade levels within a middle school environment, not all schools comply. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study…

A call for educational reform motivated this school system to devise an enhanced version of STEM in their middle school. This case provides rich descriptions of how eighth grade middle school teachers, from multiple disciplines, enacted a STEAM team model that integrated Language Arts into STEM. These STEAM team teachers were systematically…

Students are often required to create work in a vacuum, handing in papers to an inauthentic audience for the purpose of receiving a grade. As a result, students often neglect to consider the effects that their work can have on others. In this article, the author highlights an art project from her middle school in Kings Park, New York, that…

The author, Victor B. Almanzar, reports on his introduction to the arts while growing up in New York as a young teenager. He felt like an outcast from society due to his language barrier and numerous ethnic groups different from his. He became involved with other students who, like himself, were harassed and suffered from bullying due to their…

In this article, the author describes how high-inquiry questions, wait-time, assessment, and reflection can yield deep learning connections for elementary and middle school students in the world of theater-making. He explains that building understanding of theater-making processes for students is supported when they: (1) Use theater vocabulary;…

In this article, the authors report on usage of 21st-century technology, and a collaborative project that allowed middle school art students and preservice teachers to share their artwork and receive feedback in a constructivist learning environment. Middle school students often deal with issues such as bullying, divorce, and depression; they can…

As art educators are asked to broaden their scope to include children with a variety of abilities, they are beginning to seek answers from sources that might traditionally be outside their field. In an era of hybridization, appropriation, and bricolage, the divide among fields has become anachronistic and unfruitful. A new form of scholarship in…

Writing about the teaching artist practice should mean writing about art making. As both teacher and artist, the authors are required to be cognizant of their own art-making processes, both how it works and why it is important to them, in order to make this process visible to their students. They also need the same skills to write about how and…

In this article, the author talks about innovative high school curricula that engage students through the study of visual art in conjunction with critical study of history and social movements. Just as historians place a premium on locating and interpreting events in time, the visual arts are centered on getting an idea across in a visual form,…

Reading Improvement Through Art (RITA) program is an interdisciplinary approach to literacy that blends visual art with reading comprehension, evaluated in nine New York City urban high schools. 240 problem readers participating in the pilot program were pre- and post-tested in the Fall 1975 and Spring 1976 semesters. The testing showed the 9th…

Increasingly, education policy makers understand the importance of students and families having access to a range of high quality educational opportunities inside and outside of school, 365 days a year. This paper explores the concept of multiple pathways in arts education to further conceptualize and build upon such opportunities, inside and…

A holistic education linked to creativity, innovation, critical thinking and local/global citizenship is increasingly marginalized in the United States as schools continue to struggle with the impact of high-stakes testing regimes. In particular, urban youths' access to an education that furthers their ability to choose lives they have reason to…

Arts education has been a low priority in the nation's public schools for more than 30 years. In some communities, a countermovement to this dwindling presence of arts education in the schools has developed in the form of initiatives aimed at coordinating schools, cultural institutions, community-based organizations, foundations, and/or…

The Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation are proud to celebrate a fifth round of the MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Awards. For the past five years, we have collaborated to highlight the work of quality afterschool programs that support children, families and communities across the nation. This compendium is a compilation of four…

This article describes Nilaja Sun's groundbreaking one-woman show about a TA, her students, and her school, and includes interviews with the author/performer, an excerpt of the work, and a discussion of the organization behind it.