No matter how disturbing, it is common to hear "that's so gay" or "you're such a fag" echoing through the halls of a high school, but when the high school is an international school in Uganda, those words have a newfound potency. As an American teacher working abroad, the author often struggled over her responsibility for the ethical conduct of…

In this review, the author explores an often-used process in research--the mind map. He uses this method in his own research and artwork. He also uses this extensively with students, particularly master students when they are trying to surround issues in their thesis projects. Mind maps are closely associated with brainstorming, as brainstorming…

Using videoconference, three different groups met to talk about teaching artist practice using the same three convening questions--How do you make art? What communities are you a part of? What, for you, are the connections between your art making and communities?--and the same piece of student work--a short video composed of a series of digital…

This article is a personal narrative of a teaching artist reaching out to persons ill, elderly, and their caregivers because of his own experiences with cancer. As a teaching artist, the author serves schools and communities as an art critic, that is, one who facilitates discussions about works of art made by the learners or by established…

In this article, the author describes an innovative collaboration with an elementary school math teacher that leads to original student choreography and engaging mathematical thinking. Using a tool the author created called Jump Patterns, students at Fox Hill Elementary School in Indianapolis, Indiana, engage in a robust, creative, choreographic…

A writer/TA explores how her own identity informs her teaching and learning with immigrant students.

This article presents snapshots of an innovative program in which performing actor, musician, and dancer TAs work as substitute teachers. Through STARRRs (Substitute Teachers for the Arts and 3Rs) Program, New York City principals hire professional performers as licensed substitute teachers. Actors, musicians, and dancers bring their craft into…

During discussions with students the author often says, "I ask questions because I wish to know what you think. I already know what I think." Recently, he has taken his own advice, in a way, and has carefully considered what he does think and how those beliefs shape and are shaped, by his practice. Several questions with the author's answers are…

In this article, the author reflects on the transformative power of arts experience. The author shares the story of her work in an arts-integrated elementary school in Arizona. She demonstrates how drama strengthens the reading comprehension skill inference. She mentions how the students are actively participating in the lesson. They are learning…

For years, like many U.S. poets, the author felt he knew the work of Pablo Neruda--and taught bits and pieces of his story and his poems in various locations. The author drew on the poems he'd come to love years ago in "Residence on Earth," "The Heights of Machu Picchu," and his "Elemental Odes," along with snippets from his beautiful evocative…

The field of community art within higher education has made tremendous strides in the past two decades. The origins of community visual arts programming are ambiguous and traceable to multiple time periods and cultural contexts. However, in contemporary practices, higher education institutions are slowly adopting a greater priority for community…

The author is naturally a kinesthetic learner. As a child she was steeped in the wilds of seashore, fields, and woods in which she was free to roam, explore, and imagine in a deeply sensual, movement-oriented world. Because of these first experiences of freedom of movement and spontaneity in the highly intense natural world, she found the…

In this article, the author takes on what he considers to be the false dichotomy between direct instruction and arts integration. He contends that at a time when national issues of sustainability and conservation of energy and resources become ever more urgent, it is time that those committed to quality arts education stop squandering time, money,…

As a teaching artist (TA) working primarily with teens, the author has often wrestled with how to make theatre relevant and personal to a population enmeshed in the age of immediate gratification, where technology provides a world of savvy distraction at one's fingertips. In this article, the author reflects on Augusto Boal's work and the role of…

Like so many other doctors, the author loves the arts deeply. Playing a musical instrument and making photographs have been joyful pursuits throughout his schooling, training, and subsequent forty-five-year career as a medical school professor and practitioner of diagnostic radiology. Despite stretches when his healing art pushed aside his visual…