The Getty College Board Study on Arts Integration in Secondary Schools:

General Issues across Sites

End of Year Report for the Getty/CB Project
The Role of the Arts in Unifying the High School Curriculum

Not for publication.
July, 1997

Liora Bresler, Ph.D.
College of Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
1310 S. 6th. Street
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 384 7530
liora@uiuc.edu

General Issues across Sites
Liora Bresler, Summer 1997

Table of Contents
I. Summary Report

II. Introduction
1. General framework.
2. Methodological framework.

III. Arts, Inquiry, and Interdisciplinarity
3. Arts integration and an inquiry approach.
4. Interdisciplinarity versus disciplinarity.
5. The comprehensive approach: Including arts criticism, history, aesthetics and production.

IV. Teacher and Student Roles
6. Change of teacher role.
7. Profiles of "first ring" teachers.
8. Change of student role.

V. Internal and External Support
9. External resources for arts integration.
10. Structures for arts integration.
11. Change of school climate.
12. Administrative support.

VI. Project Impact: Opportunities and Barriers
13. Significance of Getty/CB support.
14. Leadership
15. Arts education opportunities

VII. Finale
16. Recommendations.
17. Areas for further reflection and research.
18. Appendix: Vignette of a student/teacher conference
19. References.

I. The Role of the Arts in Unifying High School Curricula: A Summary Report

Methodological framework
This report examines arts integration into academic disciplines in five high schools, selected from a proposal review process for exemplary commitment. This is an instrumental case-study, naturalistic, holistic and service-oriented. It uses ethnographic methods: intensive observations of integrated instruction, of faculty meetings and related artistic events; in-depth interviews with teachers, administrators, students and parents; and analysis of curricular materials and student work. Issues are grouped according to the broad areas of the curriculum; teacher and students change of roles; and supporting structures for educational reform.

Integrated subjects
English/Social Studies/Visual Arts offer the most sustained interdisciplinary linking in all sites. The predominant pattern is distinct to two sub fields: English as Literature combining with Social Studies as History. Math and Science were far less integrated as compared with the humanities. All schools integrated drama, and two schools integrated dance. Two other schools integrated music, where Jazz and Guitar teachers were responsible for the integration rather than the traditional band and choral teachers.
In all five sites, the direction of integration was to bring the arts into academic disciplines. Only rarely were academic disciplines integrated into arts disciplines. In general, integration occurred through common issues, themes and broad questions. Integration style involved the introduction of artistic ways of seeing, analyzing and communicating to expand inquiry. Pedagogical orientations incorporated scaffolding and modeling, rather than relying on a teacher-centered, didactic approach. Evaluation strategies drew upon portfolios and projects (instead of essays and tests), encouraging the presentation of concepts and ideas in a variety of modes of representation. Student interdisciplinary learning were largely constructed through individual and group projects, involving independent research and its public communication. The curricula emphasized personal and social relevance, connecting the past to present and faraway cultures to contemporary America. All sites included arts history and criticism in their integrated courses. Aesthetics was not central, but surfaced in discussions as part of reflecting on the nature of art.

Change of teacher role
The most obvious change of roles for participating teachers was their heightened movement towards developing, rather than just implementing, curricula. Academic teachers moved away from reliance on textbooks towards identifying overarching themes, and broad issues, drawing upon a variety of resources, and learning to listen to others--mostly other teachers, sometimes museums educators. From a framework of an isolated teacher, teachers saw themselves as part of a larger whole, becoming conscious of how their curriculum fits and affects other subjects, and the ways in which they can draw upon other subjects. At times, museums and their resources were used as an integral part of the course. Arts teachers became more central to the school and its mission. In particular, "first ring" teachers reported feeling expanded in the integration process, and these feelings of self-growth sustained them in their efforts and feelings of uncertainty.

Change of student role
Students' ownership of art and academic work was stressed in all sites, and connected with issues of identity, voice, and pride in one's ideas and creation. Observations of the operational curriculum revealed reflective discussions, coaching of individual students directed toward academic excellence in the projects, as well as personal meanings of such work. Students' attitudes as revealed in conversations were positive to enthusiastic. Lopez and Boston provide opportunities in the arts for ordinary students (in contrast to Suitland and Vancouver, who cater to those already interested in the arts).

Administration support
Administration support was reflected in different ways. In Lopez, the principal allowed her teachers to target the 10 grade, the most vulnerable group in terms of testing and accountability. In Boston, the headmaster secured funding for the position of director of innovation, and hired additional arts teachers from soft funding. In Vancouver, the principal was central, initiating the idea of an arts-centered school, providing advocacy, recruiting teachers, funding and resources. New Mexico provides an example of a principal with limited artistic vision and a controlling power relationship that hindered the project. Structures for success of innovation included same-student body for team teachers, as well as regular meeting time for academic/arts teachers, and monetary compensation for after hours meetings.

External support
In three schools, collaborations with a variety of museums and other cultural institutions have expanded different learning environments. The extent to which the schools used the cultural centers depended on the availability and proximity of these resources: highest in Boston Latin School, and Vancouver Academy, lowest in Las Cruces and Lopez.

Project impact
Vancouver Academy, Lopez High School and Boston Latin School show clear indication of progress along the project principles. For Vancouver and Boston, the curriculum reform was initiated prior to the Getty/CB support, and will continue regardless of that support. For Lopez, financial and professional support is essential for continuity of the project. Resource people were frequently mentioned in all sites as greatly contributing to the reform.
Findings from Vancouver and Boston suggest that arts integration into academic subjects can be done with motivated, high achieving students. Vancouver Academy revolutionized educational structures and organization in ways that can only be done in a new schools, where teachers are chosen for their interest in the arts and motivation to embark on this specific project. Boston Latin demonstrates how the arts can assume greater prominence in a college-prep, highly traditional institution, at least in the lower grades. Lopez exemplifies the success of arts integration for poor, academically weak student population, faraway from cultural centers. Suitland provides an example of a magnet school aiming to integrate two programs, its success will be determined next year.
Vancouver is unique in that the whole school participates in the arts integration mission. For other schools, the curriculum reform occurs in pockets, where Lopez is progressing most rapidly to include new teachers and grade levels, and Las Cruces moves in frantic, inconsistent gestures, without proper mechanisms for reflection, discussion and learning from mistakes.
II. Introduction
1. General framework
The 90s seem to be witnessing a renewed interest in integration. Advocates for integrating the arts with academic disciplines reflect a variety of perspectives, interests, and goals. Arts educators typically seek to establish, through integration, a more solid role for the arts within the academic curriculum (Leonhard, 1993; Martin, 1993). They envision arts specialists as collaborating with classroom teachers and, in the process, strengthening links between the marginalized specialists and the institution. Principals' vision of integration typically involves classroom teachers teaching the arts as part of the academic curricula. They tend to value integration as a means of using school time efficiently, as well as saving money and resources. Subject area teachers often express ambivalence toward the issue of integration: the demand that they include the arts feels like one more mandated curriculum topic imposed upon them with little support; at the same time, many are concerned about providing learning opportunities that will allow the less academically oriented students to draw on their unique strengths and talents (Bresler, 1992).
Obviously, integration, like other concepts, is a construction, and can mean very different things in terms of contents, resources, structures, and pedagogies to different people; yet the multiplicity of meanings is not always explicit in the ways that they use the term. Each of the constituencies presented above brings to the concept their own visions on contents and pedagogies in the arts, and a different model of what integration implies in terms of resources, planning, and structures.
The roots of integration can be traced to the ideals of progressive education at the beginning of the 20th century. The emphasis of progressive educators on the child-centered curriculum and holistic learning promoted the idea of integration between curricular subjects. John Dewey (1993) a prominent figure in the formation of the ideals of progressive education, regarded experience and aesthetic experience as the basis around which education should revolve, rather than the formal and symbolic curriculum.
The notion of integration was revived in the 60s and 70s, times where concern about students' achievement yielded to concern for students' experiences. Instead of regarding curriculum as a rigidly defined, given entity, educators focused attention on its meanings to students. The basic, academic subjects lost some of their traditional contents. At the same time, the arts and artistic ways of thinking, assumed a more legitimate, even desirable status. This climate of innovation and experimentation with new educational goals, contents and pedagogies, promoted a fusion between the arts and academic subjects.
Two prominent advocates for the positioning of art within the curriculum were Harry Broudy and Elliot Eisner. Broudy regarded the development of imagination as central to the purposes of education (Broudy, 1992). According to Broudy, the schools have given their primary attention to the intellectual operation of the mind, especially those of acquiring facts and of problem- solving by hypothetical-deductive thinking. However, the raw materials for reasoning of all sorts are furnished by the imagination. One of the school's goals is the development of the intellectual and evaluative powers of the individual by using the cultural heritage conserved through the critical traditions, and part of that tradition is the cultivated imagination. The aesthetic image epitomizes that cultivated imagination. Hence, Broudy regards aesthetic education as training imaginative perception. Broudy's vision of arts integration into the curriculum is different from the current practice of arts education. Instead of the performance approach and the traditional course in art appreciation, Broudy advocates a more global function of aesthetic education, one that ought to concentrate on helping the pupil to perceive not only works of art, but also the environment, nature, clothing, etc. in the way that artists in the respective media tend to perceive them.
Elliot Eisner (1992) calls for the education of the senses and for the de-dichotomization of the cognitive and the affective. The arts provide an excellent example of the interdependence and interrelatedness of cognition and affect. Different forms of representation (e.g., visual, kinesthetic, auditory) develop our ability to interact and comprehend the world around us and draw multiple meanings out of it. By expanding these forms beyond the verbal and the numerical, our perception of the world is enriched immensely.
Integration penetrated from the scholarly world to the more practice-oriented circles of arts associations. Its earliest voices can be traced in the "progressive era," in the music Educators National Conference Yearbooks of 1933 and 1935, which listed titles such as "Projects in the Interrelation of Music and Other High School Subjects," and "Fusion of Music with Academic Subjects" (Dykfma & Derkfns, 1944). Charles Duncan's address appealed for a balanced attitude on the relationship between the arts with other subjects. Interestingly, these arguments have re-emerged in the 90s where the arts are seen as endangered. In the bulletin "A Vision for Art Education," (1993), integration is advocated as enhancing meaning in other disciplines: "The Arts can be taught in an interdisciplinary manner as part of the broader curriculum and can make immense contributions to the teaching of other disciplines. No one can fully understand the Baroque period, for example, without being familiar with the arts [of that period]. . . Similarly, knowledge of the arts is indispensable to understanding the rise of nationalism in Europe in the 19th century or the Harlem renaissance in the 1920s." The "how" of integration involves close collaboration in both of these visions between arts specialists and the teachers of academic subjects. A conference held under the auspices of the National Arts Education Research Center, called for arts educators to become an integral part of the school (Leonhard, 1993).
Advocacies in arts associations evolved into projects and curricular materials. For instance, the teaching and learning of basic subjects through the arts were promoted by projects such as RITA (Reading Improvement Through the Arts) or ABC (Arts in the Basic Curriculum), as well as projects centering around aesthetic education (1987).
How did all of these impact the operational curriculum? In contrast to the abundance of ideas promulgated about the topic of integration, the hard-nosed, down-to-earth examination and description of school realities is far more scarce. Although advocates for arts integration abound, the actual practice of integrative programs received little attention. Most writings on integration consist of success stories, mostly by teachers who report about their practice (e.g., Ritt, 1974; Stevenson & Carr, 1993; Cohen & Gainer, 1984). There are also reports of research that measure the effect of integration on the learning of academic subjects.
The examination of integration in its natural environment is best served by the use of qualitative methodologies that involve extensive observations and immersion in the setting. These studies are still few. One such study was conducted by Giordana Rabitti who studied the exemplary Reggio Emilia pre-schools in Italy, in which the visual arts are deeply integrated across the curriculum (1991). The Reggio Emilia pre-schools use a form of the project approach. Projects Rabitti documented were conducted over a relatively long period of time and daily work periods involved lengthy sustained sessions and flexible hours. The child-centered philosophy of the schools and the underlying attitude of respect to children were an important part of the success of the schools. Rabitti concluded that art in the school was seen as "intentional, contemplated, rational... a problem solving activity."
In an earlier study (Bresler, 1995), I examined the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum, in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what and the towards what. I identified four integration styles, each with its own set of goals, contents, pedagogies, and roles within the school: (1) subservient integration, (2) cognitive, co-equal integration, (3) affective integration, and (4) the social integration.
In the first, subservient style, the arts serve the basic academic curriculum in its contents, pedagogies, and structures; the second, the cognitive, co-equal style brings in the arts as an equal partner, integrating the curriculum with arts-specific contents, skills, expressions, and modes of thinking; the third, affective integration style emphasizes feelings evoked by and attitudes towards art, as well as student-centered learning and initiative; and the fourth style emphasizes the social function of the school and its role as a community. In the study, I found that the styles of most prevalent instances of integration were what I termed "subservient", where the arts served to "spice" other subjects.
Current educational climate (embedded in larger philosophical and political contexts) is conducive to notions of "interdisciplinary" programs. Interdisciplinary studies are often embraced, at least in the U.S.A. as a good thing (Ackerman and Perkins, 1991; Bresler, 1995; Gardner and Boix-Mansilla, 1993; Shoemaker, 1991). There are remarkably few challenges to the possibility or purposes of interdisciplinary work. This lack of challenge is puzzling to those who watched the British schools wrestle with, and reject, integrated studies twenty years ago. (For a scathing and thought provoking critique from the U.K., see the English philosopher David Best, 1995; For an American critique, see Ralph Smith, 1995).
At present, a vast variety of efforts are going on in different places, using different kinds of strategies, employed for different purposes (e.g., Wineberg and Grossman, 1997; Shulman et. al, 1997; Siskin, 1997). Leslie Siskin, for example, examined how people are talking about interdiscplinarity by examining 292 online postings from teachers which appeared on America Online, AFT and NAEA bulletin board, and from 45 individual and school websites in the Internet. Shulman et. al (1997) examine what happens when a group of teachers work together with academics from Stanford to develop and implement interdisciplinary curriculum.
Most writings on educational reform assume that education best takes place in encapsulated classrooms in encapsulated schools. In his book Schooling in America: Scapegoat and Salvation (1983), Seymour Sarason, one of the most insightful and penetrating researchers and the leading scholar on educational change, argued that:
1. Schools generally are, and have been uninteresting places for students and teachers. They are intellectually boring places.
2. In the U.S., development in the mass media, and their ever-growing influence have created for young people a wide, unbridgeable, experienced gulf between two worlds: that of the classroom and school, and the real world. In terms of interest and challenge, schools are unable to hold a candle to the outside world.
3. By virtue of their encapsulation, physical and otherwise, schools have two virtually impossible and related tasks: to simulate the conditions that engender interest, challenge and curiosity, and to make the acquisition of knowledge and cognitive skills personally important and meaningful.
Sarason argues for alternative ways of conceiving and structuring formal education, including the use of non-school sites for learning. One of the questions for this study is whether the emphasis on making meaning in a variety modes of representation, combined with empowerment of students and teachers, will indeed change schools to make them interesting, challenging and inspiring.

2. Methodological framework
This report examines arts integration into academic disciplines in five high schools. These sites were not selected to be technically representative of the nation's schools but instances of promising, "best case", that is, those cases that promise the best conditions for integration. The sites were selected from proposal review process for exemplary commitment, on teachers and administrators. They also touch a variety of demographics. Each represented a place where the vitality of schools arts might be studied.
Seymour Sarason has claimed that the characteristics, traditions, and organizational dynamics of school systems are "more or less lethal obstacles to achieving even modest, narrow goals (1990, p. 12). One of the issues I raise is whether schools can be altered from within. Do they require changes and pressures from without, or perhaps some kind of transactional readiness from both sources? The answers to these questions are central to understanding the feasibility of educational reform and likelihood of similar educational reforms in other settings. For the sponsors of this project, they are important to understand the role of the Getty/CB support in these, (and potentially other), settings.
The study presented in these reports is unique in several important ways: its focus on the arts as central to the integration; its focus on five diverse, "best case" settings chosen after a rigorous process of selection; and its use of ethnographic methods, using a comparative, instrumental case-study approach (Bresler and Stake, 1992; Stake, 1994). I concur with Michael Fullan (1982) that effective reform is seldom born of goal-setting and standards-raising but rather of intensive analysis of problems, realistic assessment of schools and classrooms and careful delineation of areas susceptible to improvement. What we need is greater understanding of the obstacles to improvement and insight into the opportunities for integrated arts education. The methods of intensive observations in a variety of contexts: arts instruction, in and out of school arts related events, faculty and students' meetings; semi-structured and open-ended interviews with teachers, principals, students, and when possible, parents and people in the community; and analysis of formal materials (curricular materials, district guidelines, program notes, etc.). For specific data sources in the individual sites, see appendices in the individual reports.
Issues for organizing observations at the sites were partly those queries and concerns raised in professional and popular literature, but also those puzzlements discovered at the sites. It was important for me to establish what is happening, both within integrated arts courses and activities, but also in the relevant contexts: curricular, administrative, social and community. The questions raised were not so much "What are the children learning" but "What are the schools providing as opportunities for learning?".
Each site is unique. Initially, my interest was not in comparing them in terms of various criteria but in giving each school a chance to tell its story of arts education. My curiosity as a researcher focused on the uniqueness of each site, the special ways that a few teachers and administrators dealt with the opportunities and barriers to integrated arts education. I organized this report around central issues of arts integration. At the same time, I believe it serves the purpose better for the readers to examine each site in itself, coming to understand some of the local realities and dynamics, not so much as a generic concept but as a personalistic and situational instance, similar to, but unlike the others. Every site has its own story to tell and none is adequately representative of others.
Some research is driven by theory: educational theory, arts theory, social theory, psychological theory. As a researcher, I am not oblivious to theory. However, this study was driven by those pre-ordained issues posed by the Getty/CB sponsors, as well as by emerging themes found in the schools: by events, by problems, by teachers', students' and administrators' constructions of meaning. These issues were not derived from formal theory, nor aimed to create theory, yet constituted an evolving grounded theory, a conceptual structure for organizing and coordinating this work (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). This type of research has been supported and refined by the methodological writings of scholars like Elliot Eisner, Robert Stake, Yvonna Lincoln, Egon Guba, Fred Erickson and Philip Jackson.
I organize this report around the specific issues to communicate the most relevant information to the arts integration educational reform. The issues have been grouped according to the broad areas of the curriculum (Arts, inquiry, and interdisciplinarity); personal and role development (Teacher and student roles); and supporting structures for educational reform (Internal and external support).
Liora Bresler directed the study and conducted fieldwork in all five sites, usually for one visit, in one case, two visits. Eve Harwood assisted in a site visit in Lopez HS, Texas; Wendy Madden assisted in a site visit in Suitland HS, Baltimore; and Kevin Leander assisted in a site visit in Vancouver, Washington, as well as with data analysis in that site. The fact that we could conduct a return visit to three out of the five sites meant that we were able to examine progress across the school year. Key observations were triangulated (Denzin, 1970), by methods, sources, and in three cases, researchers. We answered to criteria of trustworthiness (Lincoln and Guba, 1995). When vignettes were included, I attempted to not only portray the event but also to develop issue-based assertions.
This research is naturalistic: attempting to see ordinary happenings in the settings as they occur naturally. I did not use instruments like questionnaires. Because we could not be on hand to see all of what we wanted to know about, we conducted interviews (which are non-naturalistic procedures). Interviews were instrumental to gain understanding into participant's constructions of the reform. I believe arts integration is best understood with a careful attention to its contexts and think of this study as holistic.
This study is service-oriented. I hope it will be useful to the sponsors in evaluating the particular settings. I also hope it is useful to practitioners and scholars puzzled by issues of arts integration, engaged in improving programs, or setting policy on arts integration. In general, I expect the report to be useful to quite different types of people but my concern is more for those close at hand, those who have most to gain and lose from a particular integrated arts education program.
This study is empathic, in the Verstehen orientation (Bresler and Stake, 1992). It attends to the intentions of the people studied, their value commitments, their frames of reference. I started with my own notions of what is important but increasingly tried to highlight issues of importance to the teachers, parents, students and administrators.
I am deeply grateful for the hospitality of the schools, the graciousness of teachers and administrators in giving me time, often before and after hours, in helping me gain some understanding into their experiences.

III. Arts, Inquiry and Interdisciplinarity
3. Arts integration and an inquiry approach
Integrated subject areas. English/Social Studies/Visual Arts offer the most sustained interdisciplinary linkings in all sites. The predominant pattern is actually distinct to two subfields: English as Literature combining with Social Studies as History, integrated with visual arts (Criticism/History/Production). In addition, all schools had integrated drama, emphasizing history and production. Lopez High School and Boston Latin School provided interesting examples of music integration, incorporating untraditional, accessible yet sophisticated musical contents; Suitland and Vancouver integrated dance, the first emphasizing productions, the second all dance disciplines; and Vancouver had a moving images and creative writing programs integrated with the academic subjects.
Visual arts is different from high school music, where teachers are more focused on the acquisition of skills. Attaining high scores in performance is a major part of their job requirements, in ways that are different from the other arts. I was told in Texas that if a teacher does not bring "1" for his performing group for a consecutive years, he is likely to be fired. In view of this, it was surprising that the more interesting examples of music integration with academics occurred in Texas. There, Michael Quantz used the Blues to talk about broad ideas of race and to illustrate common structural elements to Music, Literature and Poetry. Another illustration of integrated music was the Jazz music course in Boston, where jazz and tap dance were presented as part of an era and culture, illustrating larger issues in the society. The non-integrated music in Vancouver is surprising given the integrated mission of the school, but represents the traditions of music education in this country.
English skills (reading, writing) and to some extent Visual Art are more likely to be found within different areas of the curriculum within traditional schooling, so it is unsurprising that they would be the earliest to develop in these contexts. In this integrated subjects, English and the arts are used as concrete illustrations, reflecting cultural facts and values. Additionally, broad themes and issues are more often taken from Social Studies than other academic disciplines.
In general, Math and Science were far less integrated as compared with the Humanities. (The boundaries between math and science have a very different history than in English/Social Studies.) A rich Social Studies/Science lesson observed in Vancouver, integrated concepts of epidemiology with the study of third world cultures, their histories and economies. Such work articulates with a growing body of literature (e.g., Yager, 1996) on science, technology and society in schooling. This work links issues of scientific development to history, philosophy, and rhetoric, (which are basically English and social studies areas). Work in writing across the disciplines and disciplinary rhetoric (Nelson, Megill, and McClosky, 1987; Myers, 1990), also suggest the importance of writing in scientific and mathematical instruction. Specific examples of the operational curriculum are presented in the individual reports.
Vancouver was unique in the extent to which math and science were integrated with the arts and humanities. When math was integrated (mostly with science, the humanities, dance and visual arts) it drew on mathematical reasoning, rather than on mathematical skills, (in general, math skills are more commonly used in integrated curriculum). This integration had its price in criticism by district administrators, parents and some students. I saw evidence of occasional math/arts curricular units developed and implemented in Boston Latin School (in the Connection program) and in Las Cruces, but in both schools these were sporadic and local, rather than at the core of the subjects.
I find it thought provoking that we found no efforts to integrate music and math. Math was long thought to reside closer to music than to visual arts, from the Pythagorians "Music of the Spheres", to contemporary beliefs. Rather then the nature of music as a subject, this lack of integration can be attributed to the general ignorance of academic teachers of music as a school subject (exemplified in music literacy), the performance/achievement expectation of music teachers discussed above, and the particular dynamics among the music and academic teachers in the sites.
Other arts-integrated curriculum, in traditionally non-integrated subject areas, include foreign languages in Boston. The Chinese teacher, (who is also an artist) developed a course in which she illustrated how art and language reflect culture. The teacher wove together Chinese characters, concepts and texts in the fabric of her lessons. Drawing on her knowledge of art and philosophy, she made the culture and language of china more familiar and meaningful, through the interpretation and understanding of basic cultural values. In the same school, the French teacher created a special evening at the Gardner's museum, involving students and parents. She used the Museum collection to illustrate and enhance students' knowledge of the language in context (for more details, see in the Boston report).
In all five sites, the direction of integration was to bring the arts into the context of academic disciplinary study. Only rarely, were academic disciplines integrated into arts disciplines, and when they were, it was in reference to a specific, local issue rather than as a focus. Integration among the arts forms was observed once in Suitland (involving both dance and music, as well as English and Social Studies) and as an integral part of the school integrative mission in Vancouver.
In general, integration occurred through common issues, themes and broad questions. In Boston, Vancouver, and to a limited extent in Suitland, this led to the crossing of boundaries to out of school resources: museums, theater companies and a variety of cultural agencies.
Integration style involved the introduction of artistic ways of seeing, analyzing and communicating to expand inquiry. Accordingly, pedagogical styles incorporated inquiry methods, rather than relying on a teacher-centered, didactic approach. Teacher evaluation strategies drew upon students' portfolios and projects rather than relying exclusively on the traditional tests and essays. Assignments encouraged the presentation of concepts and ideas in a variety of modes of representation. For example, students' presentations on the concept of "reflections" in Peterson's math class in Vancouver used drawings, paintings and photography, as well as short musical compositions and dance choreographies. Projects for the Humanities course (in Boston) involved sophisticated use of multimedia on computers. In all of these instances, I found that the media facilitated the understanding and presentation of ideas beyond the verbal and mathematical. For future evaluations of the project, I recommend return trips to the schools when portfolios are being submitted, or when student showcases are underway, in order to gather richer portraits of student work.
Cognition and affect. Artistic process are acknowledged to be both cognitive and affective (Davis and Gardner, 1982; Eisner, 1982; Scheffler, 1985). Indeed, cognition and affect play an important role in the arts integration and provide useful lenses to understand the nature of curricular change. In all sites, most arts-integrated curricula reflected the underlying assumptions of the "cognitive revolution" of the early 1960's. These ideas have to do with perception, conceptualization, complex problem solving, and language acquisition (Davis and Gardner, 1992). Human cognitive activity is described in terms of symbols, schemas, images, ideas and other forms of mental representation (Gardner, 1983).
Accordingly, integrated visual art, music, theater and dance involved more than the expression of mere interest or talent. The concepts of cognition interrelated with affect provide an important background for understanding the changes in students' roles and attitudes (discussed below). The integrated curriculum is based on the assumption that the criticism and creation of art are not spontaneous nor immediate (Langer, 1957). They involve thinking (and explicit scaffolding) in a variety of modes of representation (Ecker, 1963). They also involve affective components in establishing motivation and personal relevance. The teacher's role is to supply students with cultural symbols and specific knowledge, to provide probing and space for reflection and interpretation, to facilitate students' problem solving and expression in the creation of artwork, and to tie these with personal experience.
Whereas many of the integrated courses use larger issues to direct focus on personal meanings for students, (for example, in Boston, Vancouver and Texas), there are aspects of the curriculum which remained "subject oriented" (for example, the art history component of the Boston Humanities course). Work in the arts demanded higher-order thinking: analysis, inference, problem finding, and problem solving (Davis and Gardner, 1992; Resnick, 1987). Making, analyzing and criticizing art was the articulation of experience via symbolic systems, using the rules, conventions and value systems offered by a culture, through museums, and performances, as well as popular media at times (e.g. newspapers and television in the 8th grade connection program). Indeed, in the observed integrated curricula (excluding some lessons in Las Cruces), students were engaged in activities which involve observation, perception, discussion, and active making of meaning. In most observed integrated lessons, teaching consisted of scaffolding or "supportive assistance" (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992) and included the use of modeling and procedural facilitators.
When implemented, arts integration resulted in a curriculum with enhanced relevance to students, emphasizing personal as well as social relevance. Meaningful relationships were forged by connecting the "past" (as evident in historical events, literature, and visual arts) to present and relevant issues (e.g., Myth, Heroes, Public spheres in Boston; Family, Gender, and Race in Texas), and by connecting faraway remote cultures and geographical areas to contemporary America (visual literacy as applied to various parts of the world, from ancient Egypt, China, and Greece to contemporary US in Suitland, Texas, and Boston). For example, Mona Haguchi's exhibition at the Gardner's museum was used to discuss the pressing global and personal issue of reconciliation--remembering and making peace. As part of engaging with this issue, students collected newspapers articles that dealt with collective violence or making peace. (This, in my experience, is in dramatic contrast to the prevalent school culture that regards violence as a taboo topic, to be avoided at all costs.)
In all five sites, I found that both student engagement and interdisciplinary learning were largely constructed through individual and group projects (as compared with the traditional, whole class, didactic instruction). As noted earlier, because of the emphasis on large issues and personal interpretation, much of students' work involved independent research and public communication of their research. These individual projects invited higher order thinking skills, sophisticated interpretations, and the creation of personal meanings, presented in a variety of modes of representation (for more concrete examples, see under change of students' role section).
In general, the arts were not used just to prepare students for success in other subjects. The integrity of the arts was preserved and they were not perceived as means for other topics and contents.

4. Disciplinarity versus interdisciplinary
A central issue to understand this curricular reform is the extent to which disciplinary and interdisciplinary curricula function together. Is the move from one model of learning to the other imagined as fully successful, as completed, when disciplinary learning in the form of skill-based courses are eliminated? Or should disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning be imagined as always existing in a productive tension with one another?
The tension can be imagined at the level of cognition; at the social level of coordinating and uncoordinated groups, materials, and tools; or at the institutional level of the needs to bring together and pull part. Another way to pose the same question is to ask to what degree a school's resistance to interdisciplinary work makes sense-- to what degree should we assume that disciplines, and related school subjects matters, have separate but related histories for important reasons, and are not simply barriers to be overcome? How might the dialectic between more focused disciplinary knowing/working and broad-based interdisciplinary knowing/working produce more interesting disciplines and inter-disciplines as bodies of knowledge and disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning as ways of knowing? Can deeper probing within a discipline produce more interesting and productive lateral movement among disciplines? For a deeper understanding of arts integration, these questions should be addressed in the second and third year of the projects. Answers require similar methods to the ones employed this year, extensive observations of the operational curricula, intensive analysis of formal curricula (which should be in place by the third year), and interviews with academic and arts teachers, as well as with principals, students, and parents, in order to obtain the perspectives of active participants in the interdisciplinary reform.
I believe that all schools could benefit from a clearer vision of how disciplinarity and interdisiplinarity might be seen socially, cognitively, and politically as engaged in a productive tension, as a vision of ongoing movement between instability and stability, depth and breadth, boundary-making and boundary-breaking. Related to this issue is who we imagine the students to be, what subjectivities we construct for them through and as a result of their schooling.

5. The Comprehensive Approach: Including art history, criticism, aesthetics, and production
All sites included, at least to some extent, arts history and criticism in their integrated academic courses. Aesthetics was not central to arts integration, but surfaced in discussions and as part of reflecting on the nature of art. Following are examples of how arts history and criticism were integrated into academic contents.
In Texas, I observed the music teacher, Michael Quantz, give a lesson in an integrated English/Social Studies course (taught by Hernandez and Trenfield). The lesson focused on listening to and analyzing the structure of the blues in lyrics and music. Quantz discussed the historical and sociological contexts of the blues as part of the theme of race and class, and showed the connections between the blues to the poetry in terms of rhythm and mechanics. Quantz was able to stimulate the class (who initially looked apathetic and non-involved) to create their own blues, using the specific structures and form to reflect personal experiences. Another English/Social Studies team taught by Paris and Brown, was teamed with the Visual Art teacher. They assigned students to write and illustrate the creation story, as part of their study of Symmeria (Social Studies), which also involved reading the Gilgamesh stories (English). That same team collaborated with Drama classes studying Antigone as part of learning and reflecting on gender issues in various historical times and geographical areas.
In Vancouver, I observed dance lessons where students created movements, performed for their peers and received sophisticated and well-articulated criticism. They wrote in their journal regular entries on aesthetic issues (“what is dance”, “why dance”), which were highly reflective and sophisticated in their ability to connect social/historical ideas with personal meanings and psychological states. At various times, students viewed video-tapes of dances, discussing the different time periods, the characteristics of the different types of dance, their sociological functions, and other relevant issues. The subject of creative writing followed a similar format, and visual arts and moving images incorporated artwork emphasizing historical context and criticism.
When museums were central to the curriculum reform, as they were in Boston and Vancouver, history and criticism were typically the core of the visual arts component. On my visit to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with the 10 grade American Studies Course, I was impressed with the extent to which it became part of their learning environment (physically manifested by the fact that the students, well-familiar with the route to the museum, were dashing in front enthusiastically, leaving the teachers and me at the back). Listening to students' questions and interpretations of the pictures, it was clear that they were skilled in describing and interpreting works of art. In Vancouver, the "American Grain" exhibition in the Portland museum was central to the Winter curriculum. Here, the relationships centered around that particular exhibition, and its historical and aesthetic contexts rather than on the museum as a learning environment.
In Suitland, I observed a lesson combining history/criticism/production, when the English/Social Studies teachers teamed with the dance teacher. The dance teacher presented the Minuet (discussing performance practice of the time, grounding it in historical and social contexts) as part of a unit on Colonialism. Interesting history/criticism curricular unit in a theater course was observed in Boston. The unit included all four aspects of discipline-based arts education: history (presenting drama materials from different historical eras, including Shakespeare's theater, the shapes of the theaters at different times, and the attitude of the London civil authorities about drama); theater criticism (providing students with vocabulary, including detailed pictures to illustrate concepts and artifacts); and studio (creating small models of theaters and set designs, creating scenes and performing them to peers). The lessons exemplified how history, criticism and performances can support each other, in the context of students interpreting, inquiring and creating a project of their own. One of the assignments, for example, read as follows: "You have been hired to design a set of production of Julius Casesar. The production will be performed on a proscenium stage similar to the stage at the Boston Latin School." For the assignment, the director's concept of the show was to set it in modern day Boston. The director wanted the set to have levels, including a downstage center acting area and it was supposed to remind the audience of modern day Boston. The space could be designed with any location in Boston in mind: A park area, a playground, a subway or train station, the front of a public building, etc. The three-dimensional, colored models of students' set design used paper, cardboard, and a variety of materials, and were impressive in their originality of ideas as well as execution.
Similarly, history and criticism were an integral part of the Boston Latin School's jazz curriculum. The jazz teacher, Paul Barringon, gave students research assignments in listening, where each student chose a particular jazz artist, and, listening to the music, developed a topic for a two-page paper, basing it on "what you hear in the music". Given the fact that students in this class had little prior training in music, the assignment served to focus attention on criticism and analytical skills in listening, aspects which are often neglected in music education.
Other, (and more common) manifestations of history and criticism included discussions of Greek vases (in the context of the Iliad and learning about ancient Greek) in Suitland and Boston. When visual art teachers taught visual literacy (learning to describe, analyze and interpret visual images and their implicit messages), both groups of academic teachers and students seemed interested and involved. That interest is very much part of the change of the teacher role, discussed below.
In general, criticism and history seemed to be an integral part of the arts integration in all sites. Observations of discussions that centered on art works (whether in visual arts, music, dance or drama) indicated a high level of student engagement and interest.
In the four sites remaining in the project, the co-equal cognitive integration style was prevalent. Teachers attempted to integrate the arts into the curriculum in ways that drew and built on the characteristics of art. Academic teachers learned to provide direction and guidance that often transcended their traditional abilities and visions. Integrating the arts forced them to make major changes in their thinking and attitudes, entailing a fundamentally different way of conceptualizing their discipline in terms of contents, goals, and sometimes pedagogies. In this "positive cycle," these new conceptualizations often called for stronger collaboration among groups of people that did not traditionally work together.

IV. Teacher and Student Roles
6. Change of teacher role
The most obvious change of roles for participating teachers' in all sites was their heightened movement toward developing, rather than just implementing, curricula. In developing integrated curricula, academic teachers moved away from reliance on textbooks, towards identifying overarching themes, broad issues and questions. In this process, they drew upon a variety of resources, and learned to listen to each other in ways that they did not do before. Thus, not only were teachers much more active in constructing curricula, the means through which this was accomplished--teaming--shifted the nature of their work to a high degree of professional involvement with other educators--mostly other teachers, sometimes museums educators.
In several sites, teachers brought up in our conversations the gradual but fundamental changes that were triggered as part of the process of the innovation. From a framework of an isolated teacher teaching individual classes, several teachers commented that they now saw themselves as a part of a larger whole. This was manifested in planning (even for individual lessons), and also in purchasing materials. In general, teachers said they became conscious of how their curriculum fits and affects other disciplines, and the ways from which they can draw upon other disciplines. Most teachers involved in the reform said they were expanded in the process, that it enabled them to learn from others in meaningful ways and grow professionally.
The Vancouver Academy curriculum is designed such that almost all the curricula was interdisciplinary. As Kevin and I attended teachers' team meetings, we were struck by feelings of collegiality and caring, as well as intellectual stimulation that comes of different expertise and perspective. The whole-school meetings struck us as being multi-textural, collegiality intermingled with tension and feelings that the work was "too much". The teachers in Vancouver, with the high demands placed upon them externally and internally in developing a unique new school, work within a tension between stimulating intellectual and cultural development and professional/personal bewilderment and exhaustion.
The Teacher in Residence program that the Gardner museum established in 1997, provided an other manifestation of the change of role of the teacher. RuthAnn Kelley, Ancient History teacher in Boston Latin Schools', was its first recipient. RuthAnn talked about the various changes that the residency had on impacting the curriculum. Because she had free access to the museum, she took students to the museum on a regular basis (whenever she is in the museum, which is most days when she is not teaching). Thus, the museum became her territory as much as the classroom. Her assignments drew on museum exhibits rather than on textbooks. Students were assigned a variety of projects, including having to choose five objects to which they reacted to, and discuss their emotional and intellectual reactions. Students were asked, using sketchbooks and journals, to reflect on the use of a particular picture of their choice in the 21st century, the relevance of art history and what was happening at that time of creation, and the time of purchase of the picture. On the meta-cognitive level, they discussed their reactions to why they chose it, and the experience of doing research. Obviously, Kelley's own involvement in the museum facilitated her engagement in new areas of World History (e.g., Victorian Era) which she will be teaching this coming academic year.
There were some other changes, specific to a discipline or a school. In general, English teachers had to commit much more time to teaching. The emphasis on essays and projects necessitated extensive reading of students' assignment. In Vancouver, for example, teachers let students rework a project until it reached the standards they wanted, which meant they had to read the same work several times and provide specific, detailed feedback for its improvement. In the same site, the new structures meant that teachers had to teach a wider variety of courses rather than the same course for different populations. At least one person felt it was "too much": she did not have time for her own writing. This is a high price for somebody whose writing is central to her self-identity and personal satisfaction.
Potentially, there are particular problems to arts integration as compared to other disciplines. Because arts teachers are the first to be fired in budget cuts, they fear their own unemployment. Sequential arts instruction by arts specialists is known to be replaced by alternative programs--sporadic visits to cultural institutions, or short periods of artist-in-residence programs (Stake, Bresler, and Mabry, 1991). Arts teachers may be displaced by a science teacher who incorporates Escher drawings, or by a Social Studies teacher who displays Woods' American Gothic. When interdisciplinary expansions intersect with budgetary constructions, that fear becomes particularly evident (Siskin, 1997). This may carry implications to teachers' motivation: the extent to which arts teachers are willing to collaborate in integration project, help out with ideas.
In these five sites, I found no evidence for negative change of role for arts specialists. In all sites, arts specialists became more central to the school, and the reform pushed them to become active, pivotal members of the school community.

7. Profiles of "first ring" teachers
As Stake et. al noted in their "Illinois Pair" (1985), with any innovative program it is important to take cognizance of a first and a second ring of newcomers. The first ring is made up of those who vigorously join in, wanting to be a part of the innovative mission. The whole school program is moving in a direction in which they already have been moving personally. In curriculum innovation first-ring teachers become integral to the project, serving as part of its front line of trainers of other teachers. The second ring is made up of teachers who are persuaded that the project has ideas of importance, yet remain outside the project. They sometimes serve as illustrations or demonstrations of teaching, but are unlikely to carry the innovation to a third ring. Examples of first ring teachers were Bob Paris and Doug Trenfield in Texas, Carmella Doty and Jim Wolfe in Suitland, Yolanda Spencer and RuthAnn Kelley in Boston. Because Vancouver was established as an arts-integrated school, it had the unusual situation of having most of its teachers, including the principal and assistant principal, among these first ring practitioners.
Those teachers that were involved in the "first ring" of integration struck us as enjoying trying something new, almost playful, in their explorations of new possibilities. They often said (and looked) that they feel they get expanded in the process, that it was an opportunity to grow, learn new contents, new ways of interacting with material, as well as with students. Some discussed the added (and typically, extensive) time involved in meeting with others, developing materials, reading and reacting to students' work. The sense of self-growth and development sustained them in their efforts and feelings of uncertainty. In general, those "first ring" who were involved in initiating the arts integration curriculum, thrived on working with individual students and seeing their moment by moment meaning-making as well as long-term growth and development. They were responsive to students' ideas, interests and learning styles and typically demonstrate an outstanding ability to listen to them, finding innovative means to scaffold the students' work within the curriculum. In general, they seemed to prefer less, rather than more structure, although, in environments that experimented with thin structures, they were concerned about having enough structure to be able to move in purposeful directions. They focused on "large" ideas, issues, and questions, rather than upon details and chronological fact-finding. They were willing to take risks, to give up the traditional mechanisms of control in their classroom and experiment with new ways of doing things.
First ring teachers have often rejected aspects of their own disciplinary histories and restrictions, including over-specialization, and experience historically and presently some struggle over maintaining different aspects of their identities in balance. In this struggle, they are very busy and driven, and have very high expectations of themselves despite moving in different directions. Doug Trenfield from Texas is an English teacher, as well as an actor in the local theater community; Linda Johnson from Vancouver is both a dancer and a teacher, working weekends and summers on her dance and days on her teaching; also in Vancouver, Noelle Hahn is a violinist in the evenings and music teacher during the day; Carmella Doty from Suitland is a professional photographer as well as a gifted teacher (awarded important awards in her state). These teachers, as well as the administrators who support them, like Ron Gwiazda in Boston Latin School and Deb Broszka from Vancouver, consider themselves as divided in different ways by choice. They are attracted to broad ways of thinking and acting, believe strongly in democratic community, and are often outspoken about what they believe is best for the students. They are committed to interdisciplinary education and its ethic, and also highly committed to the school as an environment to support it. An important difference between what I see as the successful schools (i.e., Vancouver Academy, Boston Latin School, and Lopez High School) and the schools that are less successful have to do with power relationships between "first ring" teachers and administrators. My findings support Seymour Sarason's claim (1990) that unless altering power relationships among different levels of educational personnel is concomitant with altering power relationships in the classroom, the goals of reform will not be realized.

8. Change of student role
In this first year of data collection, our primary focus was on curricular programs, teachers and administrative support rather than on students. However, in all five sites we engaged in conversations with students which we observed in classes, or encountered during field trips and museum visits. Liora conducted individual and group conversations with students in Boston Latin School, Vancouver Academy, Las Cruces and Lopez schools. Kevin also conducted group interviews and "shadowed" one of the students in the Vancouver Academy for an entire school day; and Wendy conducted several in-depth interviews with students in Suitland.
Individual student projects are a significant site of gathering information on how disciplinary and artistic boundaries are being traversed, and how students are making meaning from these connections. Ownership of work (in the best tradition of the art world) was stressed in all sites, and connected with issues of identity, voice, and pride in one's ideas and creation. Teresa Craddock, a visual art teacher in Boston, for example, encouraged students to "understand that what you make is yours, it's a part of your voice." She used the themes suggested by the MFA as themes to be interpreted within the broader culture, as well as personally. Teachers in Texas, Vancouver and Boston used the integrated curriculum to help students explore "who they are," the "different aspects of students' identity and their evolving roles." They often shared their own journeys and explorations, moving from a didactic mode to an interpretive, reflective guide.
Observations of the operational curriculum often revealed reflective discussions, touching on important issues, as exemplified in students' comments in Johnson's dance classes and their reflective journals; discussions in Jane Silver from Suitland on visual literacy, in a lower SES class, mostly African-American students; And in several classes in Humanities and Connection students in Boston. In Vancouver, coaching of individual students working on projects was directed not only toward academic excellence in the projects, but also toward the personal meanings of such work and work processes for the students. In one class of students with very basic math skills, many of whom also are ADHD, through a meaningful and focused group discussion Adele White connected the problem solving processes of mathematics with the processes of solving classroom social and disciplinary problems. In Boston, the multi-media projects created for the Humanities course are, in my opinion, unparalleled in their level of reflection, combined with sophisticated uses of technology and use of a variety of media. Examples of such projects are the "Cross-Cultural Analysis of Four Cultures' Philosophies on Literature and Time"; "Realities Portrayed in Kurosawa's Rashomon"; "Surrealism" and "Pencils to Paints: Space and Light in Art and Physics" among dozens of other similar projects.
During Kevin's visit in Vancouver, students completed long-term portfolios of their work and prepared presentations of it for different contexts (various classroom presentations and the community "showcase"). Jennifer (a 15 year old freshman student Kevin shadowed through the course of a day) was developing a portfolio with an emphasis on Karl Jung, has interviewed a psychologist, had read and researched on Jung, and had kept a journal of dreams and interpretations. She had sketched pictures of mandalas and generated them by computer graphics. Relating Jung's work to other scholars within the same time period, Jennifer is interested in the works of Escher, and is analyzing the mathematical nature of his images. She was also reading poetry of the time period, especially that of William Carlos Williams, and was writing poems. She had included sketches and painting in her portfolio in addition to writings, and has done research on the dancer Anna Easnan, by way of her dance classes' emphasis on the comprehensive approach. As Jennifer discussed her portfolio with Kevin, she also demonstrated a "flowy" dance movement that reminded her of Anna Easnan. Jennifer carried the whole of her portfolio in progress, itself designed as an accordion-shaped document on paper that she has "antiqued", in a small "1920's suitcase" that she had recently purchased from a second hand store.
Kareena, a 16 year old Vancouver student, part Navaho, took a landscape painting featuring a gorge and gathered first-hand accounts of canyon development/creation from Navaho viewpoints as well as from physics/astronomy viewpoints. In a project just completed, she worked in a similar form, with representations of O'Keefe paintings and gathering reactions from different Navahos. Also included in this former project were reports and images to represent different Navaho art forms, including jewelry, weaving, pottery and silver. Kareena's work is an excellent example of interdisciplinary, as well as multicultural work thriving in this environment.
Another example of the influence of the museum collaboration and the close connections between art history/criticism and production is Bridgett (15 year old) who has done watercolor paintings and smaller studies on a project inspired by Arthur Dove, one of the artists in the "American Grain" exhibition. Bridgett's research and writing on Dove are complemented by her own watercolor paintings, displayed in a small painting book, and clearly reflecting her development as an artist. From her thoughts about light and watercolors, Bridgett has been prompted by her science teacher to do experiments on light and color separation with prisms, which she is currently getting underway. In her art class (observed by Kevin), Bridgett had with her a book on light and a small collection of prisms.
Student-led arts groups were presently a unique and significant realization of the arts/democratic community coarticulation. Kevin observed a highly disciplined and hard-working dance groups co-led by three older students which met weekly before school for a one and one-half hour rehearsal. The group had been meeting for several weeks, was basing some of their work upon the production of Stomp!, as well as following suggestions from a former visiting dance artist. They planed for a public performance in early April. A second student-led group that was underway was a theater troupe preparing for a production of Scott Fitzgerald's "The Vegetable". The students wrote a grant for funding the play (and received $900 support), cast the play, and were working on costuming, directing, set design, and all other aspects of production. All of this work had been carried out by the students themselves, with the guidance and support of faculty. From an arts perspective, both groups were wonderful opportunities for students to engage in interpretation and creative expression. From the perspective of democratic community-building, such student-originated and directed work were strong examples of student commitment to communal purposes. Based on our observations, Kevin and I recommend that schools keep exemplary works of their students (like Boston Latin School) for further analyses.
Not least important are students' attitudes and responses to the arts integration project. We noted earlier some of the reflective discussions we observed in classrooms. In addition, we talked with students in all sites. In Suitland, students (typically there were self-appointed "informants", not ones chosen by teachers) highlighted the importance of arts integration to making meaning in their life ("I need to see and feel the integration between my art classes and my academic courses in order to feel alive.") They talked about how it allowed them to "be different", the importance of connections between popular culture, the various disciplines and life situations, and the "family" quality of the program. Conversations with Kevin and Liora in Vancouver reflected similar themes. Interviews with three mothers and with three students, and conversations with many more students (chosen at random) revealed remarkable enthusiasm for the school, in several cases even cherishing of the school and its values. All spoke about high motivation for learning, about enhancement of interest, and personal investment. All valued the special community of learners (teachers and students) that characterized the school.

V. Internal and External Support
9. External resources for art integration
Internal teaming and openness in the schools have been enhanced by collaborations with and openness to a variety of external resources. Collaboration with a variety of museums and other cultural institutions have expanded different learning environments, exposing students to high quality artworks. Naturally, the extent to which the schools used the cultural centers depended on the availability of these resources. Thus, highest on the list of collaboration were the Boston Latin School (within 4 minutes walk from two outstanding museums), then Vancouver (within 30 minutes drive from the Portland Museum) and Suitland high schools (within 60 minutes drive from a variety of museums).
In Boston, all three arts integration based programs (but especially the American Studies and the Connections programs) make extensive use of the museums facilities and programs. Classes visited the museum frequently, exhibitions integrated into their regular curriculum in both issues and themes, as well as "ways of looking and interpreting." The visits were sequentially planned and built on previously learned skills, so the results were very different from the usual "one shot" visit within education. In addition to these regular visits, teachers made use of the museum for special projects, like the Declamation (where eight grade students made oral presentations, declamations of acts from Julius Caesar). The exquisite environment of the Gardner museum greatly enhanced the educational experience.
In conversations with the directors of education of the two museums, they praised the administrators and teachers from Boston Latin and claimed their collaboration with the museums was exemplary. In fact, they said that much of their planning of work with other schools was based on the model that BLS and the museum developed together. The Teacher-in-residency project in the Gardner museum was part of that collaboration, and it was a Boston Latin School teacher, RuthAnn Kelley, who received the first residency in winter, 1997. To facilitate students' visit on a weekly, sometime daily visit to museums, Kelley initiated "permanent" field trip permission, where parents gave a one-time authorization to the school to take their children to museums.
The Vancouver Academy has collaborated with the Portland Art Museum as well as several theater groups. The school has a developed and developing network of relations with local and national artists and art associations, and these relations enrich the program in numerous ways. Steve Barnes, a script writer and former UCLA faculty member, was recently visiting the school for a day and presenting to students, as well as leading them in a mini-workshop. The school is connected with Portland literary arts, which is a partnership that brings in nationally known artists to the school and has them do presentations and workshops with the students. Karen Carbeaux, a non-fiction writer, was working with approximately 15 students during Kevin's visit in a five-week writing workshop. The school has also hosted arts exhibits, including the Seafirst Corporate Art Collection "Pictures by Legends." Students and staff speak of visiting artists across a range of forms routinely, and the school works hard to provide opportunities for students to experience art presentations beyond the school, such as organizing trips to the Portland Symphony and an off-Broadway production of the musical "Stomp!"
At the time of Wendy's visit to Suitland, teachers visited the African Art Museum and the Holocaust museums in Vancouver DC., and planned (as a group) to incorporate these into their curricular units. Students' visits to these Museums were scheduled for May.

10. Structures for art integration
Time for teaming.
Structures for integration are key to success of innovation. Among them, common planning time with arts teachers is crucial. When teachers are asked to stay after hours, there needs to be compensation for their efforts (most of the time it's symbolic gesture, but still a token recognition for their efforts).
The range of scheduling structures varies from school to school. Teachers in Texas had relative large planning time blocks (1 1/2 hours a day) in which they met, discussed ideas and coordinated plans. Interestingly, Las Cruces had similar blocks (80 minutes), but teachers did not use it for team meetings. Clearly, common planning time is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. Boston allowed for reduced teaching load (four classes a day instead of the usual five) for the Connection teachers, and the American Studies teachers met on a weekly basis, in addition to shorter, informal meetings in their (common) plan time.
In Vancouver, two scheduling structures permit time for teachers to do team planning and curriculum development. The shorter of these is the twice weekly planning period, which is used for this purpose and is also needed for individual teacher work. Monday afternoons have been arranged for early dismissal and designated as a planning time for the entire faculty. Teachers met in addition to these scheduled times, typically on Sunday mornings or weekday evenings, at each other house. In addition to the nurturing and support of teaming time, which may require altering the nature of Monday meetings or looking for other teaming opportunities in the schedule, resources are needed to give teachers the opportunity to do cross-observations of one anothers' work. Many teachers expressed interest in our reporting merely for the reasons of having a better sense of what is going on the school, and many expressed a desire to sit in other classrooms themselves. In addition to outside observation and consulting, supporting internal cross-observation as a means of development could have major effects for the development of the school's coherent vision, curriculum and democratic values, as well as for the development of interdisciplinary identities. I believe similar conditions could be useful in the other settings.
Of all the schools, Suitland had the least developed structures for team meeting time. Originally intended to be bi-weekly, meetings dwindling to once a month. It was our impression that the large size of the school and the fact that the academic teachers were housed in another building made communication less intense.

11. Change of school climate
Arts integration reflects, as well as shapes school climate and values. The emphasis on student interpretation and sense of ownership is integral to arts making. In the successful manifestations of this project, interpretation and ownership expanded to academic subjects due to that nurturing of ownership. We found that there was an increased respect in the ways that teachers, and students listened to each other present ideas and perform. We remarked on how little ridicule was heard among students; we noticed artworks hung in the hallways without being harmed, and a general lack of graffiti in restrooms and public spaces. Especially in Suitland and Vancouver, the arts provided a sense of identity for students, many of whom remarked feeling like "misfits" in other schools. In Suitland (VPA program, which houses the Getty/College Board project) and Vancouver, and to an increasing level in Texas (which is in the process of becoming a "magnet school for the arts"), we sensed feelings of attachments and pride that mirrored students' ownership of work. Most striking of all, perhaps, is the construction and maintenance of school climate--an ethic of caring for one's work, for one another, and for the preservation of this community in the making--is largely the result of students and staff working together.
The specific relation between the arts-based curriculum and democratic community development/school climate is worth further study and is suggested at several different levels, such as individual student ownership of projects, students' respect for one another's work, whole-school activities and theme-building, and culminating celebrations/showcases. From the perspective of democratic community building, the examples of student work that we referred to earlier, encourage students to construct, at a grass roots level, group identity and purpose--the groundwork of democratic culture. In this process, in the Vancouver and Boston schools, connections between parents and teachers were enhanced.

12. Administration support
With the exception of the Vancouver Academy of Art and Science, and Las Cruces High School, principals were not directly involved in the curricular reform. Las Cruces provided an interesting case where principal's involvement caused more problems than benefits. This was because he used this involvement as a control mechanism, rather than facilitating ideas and interactions. Indirect support included Boston Latin School Headmaster appointing Ron Gwiazda for the role of coordinator of curriculum innovation.
Administration support was reflected in different ways in the four remaining sites. It was weakest in Suitland, where the VPA/IB project is one of five, and where the principal is perceived (by teachers, as well as Wendy and myself) to be interested in accountability and grades more than in the nature of learning and in students' intrinsic motivation. The director of the University program (of which the IB is one part) is a strong advocate of the arts integration initiative, as is the director of the IB, but they are not supported by the higher administration.
In contrast, Lopez principal supported the project by allowing them to target the 10 grade (the most visible and accountable to be tested in State wide tests). In our interview, this principal showed remarkable enthusiasm and awareness of what the "first ring" teachers were doing. Other teachers commented that she risked her position as a new principal, had the test results been lower. In Boston, the headmaster's support was indirect but powerful, as he was the one who secured funding for the position of coordinator of innovations and assigned Ron Gwiazda to this position. It was the headmaster who hired Teresa Craddock, several years prior to that, to teach Visual Arts (in a school that did not have Visual Arts in its curriculum). He also acknowledged the importance of the innovation in allowing teachers involved in the project to teach four, rather than five customary courses. In Vancouver, the principal was central to the innovation, initiating the idea of arts-centered school, providing advocacy, recruiting people, funding and resources. As I noted earlier, New Mexico provides an interesting situation where the centrality of the principal in coordinating the innovation can be a hindrance, due to his other responsibilities of managing the school, as well as limited vision on the nature of arts integration and need for control.

VI. Project Impact: Opportunities and Barriers
13. Significance of Getty/CB support
Of the five sites, there are three that show clear indication of progress along the project guiding principles. These are the Vancouver Academy, Boston Latin school, and Lopez High school. The various ways in which these three manifest arts integration into academic subjects has been elaborated in the individual reports, as well as in this general report. All three, in my opinion, promise to continue and grow along these lines.
In the cases of the Vancouver Academy and Boston Latin School, the curriculum reform will continue, regardless of the support of Getty/CB moneys. For Lopez High School, that financial, and not less important, professional support, is essential for the continuity of the project. Put in another way, Vancouver Academy would have been very much as it is without the Getty/CB support. Boston Latin Schools would have the same intense relationship with the MFA and the Gardner Museums. It would also have the same arts integrated programs for the 8th grade Connection programs, and the 12 grade Humanities course. The 10 grade Humanities course may or may not have been developed. In both Vancouver and Boston, plans for these have been in operation years before the Getty/CB came into the picture. The Getty/CB support in money and especially in professional development is important, but it is not indispensable to the arts integration endeavor. It is in Lopez High School, that the arts integration reform was kindled by the Getty/CB initiative. It is this initiative that prompted the curriculum reform, including change of existing structures and schedules to fit the project goal.
The Getty/CB support is essential in Texas, where the same amount of money can buy a full time teacher and compensate teachers for extra time involvement (due to the low salaries in this part of the country). Clearly, it was the Getty/CB initiative that facilitated this integrative curriculum, which is remarkably unique given the extremely low SES of its student population and their low proficiency in basic skills. The Getty/CB prompted the changes in Las Cruces, but it was not enough to overcome the obstacles in the site (central to whom is principal's priorities, which focused more on computers than on the arts; as well as his leadership style which is not conducive to teacher empowerment.)
The other three sites had different forms of arts integration prior to the Getty/CB project. The Getty/CB is helpful in both Vancouver and Boston sites, though as noted earlier, it is clear that they have goals, histories, and support that extend well beyond the Getty/CB initiative. In these cases, Getty/CB support can be viewed as supporting and improving strong, innovative programs. Out of these three, the most fragile is Suitland. Here, the success of the project in Suitland will be determined next year, when the IB program targets the same grade level as the VPA. Some teachers seemed motivated and capable, but the fact that they involved different grade levels this year prevented an effective collaboration.
Resource people were frequently mentioned in all five sites as greatly contributing to the integrated curriculum. The use of formal curriculum (materials) and observations of the operational curriculum indicate their centrality in the arts integration project. While important in all sites, they are indispensable in Lopez, where teachers are open and enthusiastic, but not always knowledgeable, and where other resources are more difficult to obtain, due to both financial position and geographical location.
Findings from Boston Latin School and the Vancouver Academy suggest that arts integration into academic disciplines can be done with motivated, high achieving students. The Vancouver Academy revolutionized educational structures and organization in ways that can only be done in a new school, where all teachers are hand-picked for their interest and motivation to integrate the arts with all academic disciplines. The small size of the school is an important factor in the success of community building. Boston Latin School exemplifies the possibilities of a vision combined with strong leadership, and local opportunities (i.e., two next-door museums with interested educational directors). Both Vancouver and Boston schools point to the centrality of time for development and careful planning (with an inbuilt mechanism to make changes) to achieve successful curriculum development and implementation.

15. Leadership.
Successful schools have changed, at least in some ways, the power structures, so that different groups are given responsibility for formulating plans, goals, feedback, a degree of responsibility and power they never were accorded before. That works on different levels. Most obvious is students' empowerment (discussed in different parts of this report, as well as the individual reports) to provide interpretation and personal meaning to the learned materials. At the second level, teachers are accorded similar treatment. Thus, the social organization of the classroom is often representative of the social organization of the school and often the school system (the latter level, as I suggest in future areas for research, needs to be explored).
It seems that Vancouver Academy has strong leadership style. Deb Brozka, the principal, provides, for teachers that sense of empowerment and space to formulate aims, participate in school decisions on structural, procedural levels. These same invitation for participation is extended to students and to some extent, also to parents. Brozka's administrative leadership parallels her arts education leadership. She is central in her deep understanding and commitment to the arts, in her first hand knowledge as a dance teacher and performer. For a principal, Brozka is unusual in her involvement in the project: she was not only an active, but a central participant, arguing, explaining, persuading, recruiting, stating why this endeavor is important not just to her but to arts education in general. She has visions and ideas, yet she never dictates, always invites other to create a shared endeavor. Indeed, that school has a critical mass of excellent teachers, people who functioned as leaders in arts education in their previous schools and who continue to function as leaders, in all areas of arts education, but particularly in dance, creative writing, visual arts and drama. The story of how these insightful, visionary, strong-willed individuals collaborate together is a captivating theme that should be explored next year.
Boston Latin School has an excellent project facilitator, but he does not carry the same responsibilities as a principal/headmaster. While his own expertise is English rather than one of the fine arts, Gwiazda has dedicated, knowledgeable teachers in visual arts and drama who provide direction and guidance. The newly hired, part-time music and tap dance teachers, are too new to consider them as "leaders". In contrast to Vancouver, Boston has resources and arts education leaders. However, the school does have a strong professional expertise and support in the educational directors of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Gardner's Museum.
Of these three schools, Lopez is the one that needs more professional development for its arts teachers. I was impressed with Dr. Quantz' leadership style, his arts specific knowledge and collaborative skills. The two visual arts teacher and the drama teacher need support and professional development to assume stronger leadership positions in the project. At this point, the five academic teachers who integrated the arts into their academics provide stronger leadership positions.
Las Cruces has excellent teachers who could have functioned as leaders in terms of their dedication to the project, knowledge and success as teachers. Like the three other schools, these are not the arts teachers but the academic teachers. They don't assume leadership position, some of them for personal characteristics, (people like Jim Greene, Sal Estrada and Phyllis Worski), others have to do with relationships with the principal (Bob Wofford).
Suitland is unusual in that those central to the project are arts people. People like Carmella Doty, Don Fear and Philip Levy are dedicated and knowledgeable. But their "territories" are limited, and without stronger support from other academic teachers or the upper administration it's difficult to make any changes. It remains to be seen next year if some of the academic teachers (like Jim Wolfe and Jamie Schraff) would assume greater responsibilities to the project and stronger leadership positions.
In all five schools, the position of arts teachers was strengthened. The expertise and knowledge of arts teachers were seen as important for project success. It depended on the individual arts teachers whether they were able to rise to the challenge and take position of leadership (as, for example, in Dr. Michael Quantz in Lopez and Teresa Craddock in Boston) or whether they felt it took too much time and energy (as, for example, in Adrian's case in Las Cruces, or Barbara's case in Suitland). In general, most art teachers welcomed the opportunity to contribute to school change and see their discipline become central to academic disciplines.
In all five schools, the educational reform provides a major challenge to the status quo, this challenge requires of teachers, administrators and students that they change not only their practice, but also their attitudes, their thinking and sometimes basic beliefs. When principals are ignorant of what the proposed changes require (as I believe the case with both Las Cruces and Suitland principals), they can create more obstacles than help. Vancouver's case indicates the power of administration that is both committed to the arts, and empowers teachers of all subjects to make changes. Suitland's case proves that leadership in arts education is not enough for success.
Sites experiencing problems.
Las Cruces and Suitland exemplify the problems that happen where the principals do not have a deep understanding and a commitment to the arts. Both schools illustrate how much easier it is to cater to the already motivated, high achieving student population (as compared with the unmotivated, low achieving); to stratify the excellent, experienced teachers for the high achieving, and the relatively new, or less competent teachers to the lower achieving students. In addition, both schools have large buildings, principals who are not committed to the arts and inner tensions and jealousies among teachers.
Overcoming problems.
Lopez High School in Texas was able to overcome its poor and academically weak student population and its remoteness from large museums, largely thanks to positive working relationships among teachers and principals. The newness of the school and the selection criteria of its faculty are relevant factors. Arts teachers need professional development to enhance their knowledge as well as pedagogical skills. In contrast to Suitland and Las Cruces, there seems to be little resistance to the innovation on the part of faculty; and a genuinely supportive administrator who was willing to let her teachers experiment before results could be "proven".
Larger strategy for school change.
The individual reports address the particular indicators of progress at each site. In general, progress indicators are the development and implementation of pilot courses integrating arts into academic disciplines; regular meetings where faculty brainstorm, discuss ideas and develop curriculum, which results in teachers starting to conceptualize their courses as part of larger, collaborative units (rather than individual teacher courses); students' responses and attitudes; and the change of structures to facilitate integration.
The four schools provide exemplary illustration of arts integration into academics, in highly unique ways. Lopez High School in Texas exemplifies how arts integration can occur for a lower SES, Hispanic population who has traditionally had low school achievement. The emphasis on personal interpretation, and higher order cognitive aspects of the academic and arts curriculum enhances the curriculum. It shows that arts integration combined with the inquiry approach can impact the relevance of curriculum to students' lives.
Boston Latin School demonstrates how arts can assume greater prominence in a college-prep, highly structured institution, at least in the lower grades, without sacrificing the rigor or the curriculum and the prestige of the school. Vancouver Academy of Arts and Sciences is a fascinating example of restructuring a whole (new) school to place art at its center. Because this school is not without its problems, negotiating the tension between an interdisciplinary philosophy and disciplinary need (a trajectory that is opposite that of the other schools) can inform us about the issues involved in a fully interdisciplinary setting. Suitland High School provides an interesting example of a magnet school that is aiming to integrate two programs (the Visual and Performing Arts, with the International Baccalaureate). The full scale of the success of this particular program, I believe, can only be determined next year, when the two programs would have the same students (in terms of grade levels). On the whole, these four schools are important places from which we can learn about the diverse, and powerful, ways of integrating arts and their roles at the center of the curriculum. Las Cruces in New Mexico taught us about major hindrances. of which retirement of the former principal is central.
One additional indicator for success is the way to which teachers are selected to enter the system. In Vancouver Academy, all its teachers were selected on the basis of their commitment to arts integration into academic disciplines. This also explains why Lopez schools is as successful as it is. Having a critical mass of teachers who are willing to invest time and energy, take risks and change the structures of their teaching is essential to the success of the program.

16. Arts education opportunities
Opportunities for ordinary students
Opportunities for ordinary, nonarts oriented students are quite striking in Lopez High School. Although the school is supposed to function as magnet school for the arts, only 10% of its students are currently part of the magnet program. The arts are integrated into regular academic subjects and are taught to students with little and no experience in the arts. Boston Latin School too, caters to nonarts students, although the profile of its students is dramatically different from Lopez: a homogenous student population of the highly motivated and achieving, as compared to the uniformly low achieving, at risk student population. Vancouver's student population is "non-ordinary" in its initial interest in the arts. In the first implementation year, the Suitland students involved in the project are those that are part of the visual and performing program, all highly motivated, and skillful in the arts.
One of the powerful elements in this reform that facilitates success for "ordinary" students is the changed requirements of students towards personal involvement and meaning making. In the successful cases, Vancouver Academy, Lopez High School, and to some degree Boston Latin School, students' interests became important. Project and portfolios place responsibilities for learning with students, and the comprehensive approach implies they use critical skills, rather than mere talent and technique.
Expansion of arts education beyond the conventional
It was in the Vancouver Academy that arts education seems to be at its best, most revolutionary, most exciting and challenging to conventional thinking. Teachers like Linda Johnson, Becky Ainstein and Adele White are pushing arts in varied directions. All have to do with the ability to pose questions, to make meaningful interpretations and substantiate these interpretations. All have to do with the relevance of art and artistic ways of thinking, seeing and hearing to the rest of one's life, not just as a goal for students, but also for teachers, and principal. This is an ongoing quest. There are always new contexts, new ideas to explore, new students' constructions.
Vancouver is unique in that the whole school is part of that mission. For the other schools, the curriculum reform occurs in pockets. Lopez is progressing most rapidly to include more grade levels and more teachers, Boston is progressing in a slower pace (note that it had eight years to develop to where it is, now full integration for the eight grade level, and two new integrated courses in the 10th and 12 grade levels). Suitland aims to extend the project to other courses, but the extent to which it is effective remains to be seen. I found Las Cruces problematic in the frantic, but inconsistent gestures toward reform where teachers quickly developed curricular units, without proper mechanisms for reflection, discussion, learning from mistake. There, I observed lack of administrative support combined with the lack of teachers' (either arts or academic subjects) ability to organize the group towards achievement of project goals, all of which resulted in an impasse.
All four other sites need a continued support for professional development, for both arts and academic teachers, to be effective and carry their ideas further.

VII. Finale
16. Recommendations
Three of these schools move in the direction of the project's goal. Of the three, two have been working on art integration for several years, before the Getty/CB initiative (eight in Boston Latin School, four in the Vancouver Academy). Lopez High School is new to the project. I would recommend continuation of funding and professional development for the three schools. Reform needs time. I urge the sponsors to give Lopez more time and not to expect it to be on the same lines as the two other schools, simply because it is so much newer and had fewer chances of developing ideas. If asked to provide ranking, I would rank Lopez as No.1 for continued support, Vacouver as No. 2, Boston Latin and Suitland as No. 3 each (for different reasons and criteria).
I agree with the recommendation of terminating the project in Las Cruces. In the Las Cruces case, it was not merely the fact that what was done was little and with one exception, inexperienced and low quality. I was troubled by the fact that the principal did not seem motivated to improve, but invested more energy on appearances. Clearly, the goals of the school and the Getty/CB have to be aligned, rather than manipulated to achieve success.
The case of Suitland is more honest, but problematic. I see major hindrances to the project in the tensions and lack of trust between the "first ring" faculty and the principal. I strongly recommend that the school will be monitored closely for progress. In order to continue with the funding, the school need to be able to demonstrate integrated lessons, as well as ongoing structures for collaboration. A decision on renewed funding for the academic year 1998/9 should be contingent upon a positive assessment of these improvements. In particular, the assessment should establish that curricular reform goes beyond the very early stages of implementation, that school administration and teachers have learned from past mistakes, and have established an ongoing mechanism for self assessment and correction of problems.
Required improvements include:
1. Establishment of several collaborative teams (at least three) across school subjects
2. Evidence of regular ongoing structures for group meetings (which will be observed in the site visits). Teachers in collaborative teams will develop curriculum and conduct an on going assessment on what is working and what needs more reflections, resources and feedback. Such structures should involve release time and/or monetary compensation, fixed schedules for meetings, and milestone for achievements and the creation of formal materials.
3. Evidence of at least four operational arts-centered curricular units with a strong critical inquiry based component to be observed in site visits.
I recommend that these improvements will be assessed by a Getty/College Board evaluator in early Spring 1998. This time frame is chosen to ensure that the school will have had enough time (about six months from the beginning of the school year).
Each of the schools involves a core of knowledgeable, motivated, dedicated teachers. Each has some in built administration support. There is a fascinating story with powerful educational implications here. As a researcher who have seen many schools in this country, as well as other countries (including the famous Reggio Emilia), these schools are compelling ones.

17. Areas for further reflection and research
I believe there are a number of issues that need to be investigated to better understand the project, its success and the different barriers to its success. The first has do with understanding the system as part of its relations to the political system and its decision-making processes, formal and informal. These play an important part in all sites. They are glaring in the case of Las Cruces and Suitland, where the political obstacles seem biggest. On the other end of the spectrum, we have interesting, but partial data on how these factors worked in Vancouver, contributing to the success of the school.
A related issue has to do with the role of the parents in the schools. Again, we have good data on the Vancouver Academy, (based on Liora's interviews with parents and Kevin's observations of parents' meeting with principal and other school people). It would be useful to explore the role of parents' involvement in other settings as well, and understand how they can support, as well as hinder, educational reforms.
Most important, perhaps, are students: their characteristics, their assigned roles in the school, their perceptions of the system and how it fits with their general roles and aspirations. We started to explore these issues and have some data, based on observations and interviews (some in-depth, most superficial, one-time shot). A deeper understandings of how these work with the reform's goal could be useful.
The larger issue, far beyond the immediate purpose of this report, but one that all the issues and findings of these six manuscripts lead to is how, when and why new ideas gain currency, get accepted and institutionally implemented.

Appendix:
18. Vignette: Teacher-Student Conference
Context: Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. Tues., Feb. 25, 1997. Conversation takes place during Trece's humanities class. Prior to this interchange, Trece has met with a few other students, individually, for brief periods of time. She also addresses questions from two students during the course of meeting with Jennifer. The room is bright and airy. Trece and Jennifer are seated at a table, near windows. About twelve other students are scattered around room, working and talking in pairs or alone. Two are at computers in the room. Room is mainly quiet, but low talk can be heard. Several of the students have signed out to go work in other locations (e.g., the library). The entire class period is and hour and a half long. Trece is in her fifties, has a ready and broad smile, gray hair, is wearing a sweatshirt. Jennifer has a burgundy sweater on over a white tee-shirt. She has white flowers in her hair.

The following transcript represents part of a longer dialogue. Conversation picks up from where Trece (teacher) has written out a maxim in French for Jennifer (15 year old student) about how the end is nothing but the road is all--("Le but n'est rien, le chemin et tout"). She notes how she has this on her desk, is trying to remember just how it goes.
Transcript is actual record of talk and are written in italics and bracketed.
Overlaps of talk have not been marked. Pauses are represented with ellipses.

T: I think that's hard to keep in mind, hard to keep the big picture.
J: I read some books about, you know, just being present, being present where you are and being aware.
T: Well, we were talking about that the other day when we said, Life--is ephemeral art. (chuckles, smiles) Every day, you know, you know, you don't get to take it with you.
J: It's great, every day when I go to bed, I'm like what did I do today?! (smile, T laughs). I wrote this poem--last night I was kind of upset, and so I wrote this. (shows T. poem, who reads silently, finger following lines).
Yesterday was like the crappiest day, I mean
T: It wasn't productive?
J: No, too productive
T: And you got this poem out of it? And it was a crappy day? (big smile, J. laughs)
J: No, that's just how I felt before I went to bed. It's like I tried, I mean, I wasn't present during the day, but I guess I was (T laughs). And I was trying to figure out what I was present about, and I looked up, when I got home, I looked up at the clouds, and it was like wow, I looked up and the clouds, and I smelled this smell, and I was like--
T: Isn't it interesting about art, because, I wonder if this is true--does it ever come to us without pain?
J: I dunno, I dunno, I can't say. I don't think when you're all positive, and everything's perfect, I don't think that could be art
T: Yeah
J: Cause normally I have some of my best writings when I'm sad, or upset, and you know, know, my best painting, or whatever
T: And, yet, I look at poet, have you read any of e.e. cummins?
J: I don't know
T: I know, we just touched on him a bit, and he goes along with, "La, la la la la, being a child, and yet you also know that if you're creating anything you're working at it . . . children do this.
J: I know, that's what I wanna do, I feel like a kid, I have this big jars of glass. Something I had done when I was two, three four five.
T: Do you remember as a kid, doing something and getting so engrossed in it?
J: Yeah. I had this bike. I wrote something about this (points to portfoliod work) We always used to go on nature walks, you know, when my mom and dad would go out and we had a babysitter. So I had this bike, and I had this babydoll, and I wanted to be a mommy, you know, so I had this baby and I took a box and I cut it out and I cut a couple of little leg holes, and I remember wrapping it around, and if I tied it on the back of the bike, there was no place for it, and I remember the wheel kept rubbing against the cardboard, and I couldn't go, and I remember the string got caught around something, anyways (laughs)
T: (laughs)
J: Yeah, so anyways, I remember I worked real hard on it, and I remember there was tape all around it, and I probably still have the doll
T: Do you remember the sound?
J: Grinding cardboard. It's like tshhhh, tshhh-- you know, constantly, I finally got off, maybe I fell. I think the doll fell out a couple of times. Probably it's got like street marks on it!
T: Your baby?
J: I dunno, I think I maybe gave that baby to a homeless girl.

This part of the conversation shows a good deal of trust between the two, and it's evident also that part of this trust is also formed by Jennifer's sharing of her work with Trece. Also, it reveals a kind of seamlessness between art experience and living that would be a desirable goal of any curriculum--Jennifer uses her work to process her feelings, reflect on the day, merges yesterday with today, school with home. The topic of the conversation touches on aesthetics issues. Trece poses aesthetic questions as response to a student's work within the flow of activity--for example, does art require pain? Or, what is the relationship between really working at something and art? Lastly, this isn't the very beginning of their meeting, but close to it. Note how Trece does not rush in with an agenda, but let's Jennifer begin talking about yesterday, sharing her poem and feelings, a story about her history. Genuine interest in Jennifer as a person is very evident.

T: You're--you--where are you today?
J: I'm stressed because I have a lot to do. Let's find my list here. Alright, so let's find the list. It's in here somewhere. (looking through papers in notebook)
T: A single sheet of paper?
J: No, it's like three or four page list.
Here's a part of it. Here's what I need to get pictures of . . .
No, don't look at that. This is um, this is my project outline, everything I'm doing. And everything, it used to have a dot. If it's done it has a star. Each little dot was a writing, you know, a piece. It's not a piece, just a writing--
T: It sounds like a piece
J: It's an intro, a piece of writing
T: A piece of piece
J: So, you know, there's an intro of what I wanted my project to be like--what it was at the beginning. Things have changed so much. The evolution of thinkers, so then I do down, blah blah, then I go down to literary expression, then I go to expression through dance, and then to expression through visual art. So, I have all this stuff to do this weekend.
T: O.k., is this the way you're going to organize your portfolio?
J: This is in order. It's all in order--of the appearance in the sketchbook. I'm gonna have, when I've got all these writings finished, and all written out nicely, and in the sketchbook, then, when I have this big thick thing of stuff, then I'm gonna make a table of contents, I'm gonna go through it and think, 'Wow, what would I need for this?' Or I'll have somebody else look through it. I really wanna do it at the end--I'm not leaving it to the last--I mean, I am, purposely, and I want everything to be finished by next Friday, so on the weekend I can just touch up and touch up, that's my goal.
T: O.k., um
J: But I'm scared, cause I have all these things to write. And then I have these observations. Remember I told you a long time ago that I had these observations, from just places I've gone, like on the bus, and people that I've listened to and eavesdropped on
T: Uh huh
J: and I've had this big wad of stuff that I wanted to write about, like in my notes, but I haven't had a lot of time to yet
T: O.k., do you know what--
J: I'm stressed
T: Yeah, you are stressed. O.k., let me make this observation that you may have forgotten about. Do you remember this is your first draft portfolio? And when you turn it in on the tenth, and you can even say somewhere in the portfolio, 'This is where I've started, and this is where I want to conclude,' because remember that this is yours, this is not for the grade, although you are going to get a grade.
J: Yeah, I don't care about the grade
T: That's the--
J: I've already learned a lot, so the grade doesn't matter at this point. You know what my dad said this morning? He said 'You know, you should get a good grade on this,' and I'm like, don't even start (laughing)
T: Let's put that in perspective though. You will get a grade on it. You will get--that's the--fringe benefit.
J: It's the extra.
T: Yeah, it's the extra--

One thing that this dialogue suggests is the very personal and patient nature of conferencing with students over projects that they are engaged with to this extent, and how it compels a good degree of sensitivity from the teacher. Trece is careful to just let Jennifer talk through a lot of her anxieties. She could shut her down much earlier and simply give her a plan for completing the project, but unlike many teachers, Trece does not hold the project (portfolio and its presentations) at the center of her concern, but the developing artist/student--Jennifer herself. This focus is not simply, then, on "process" as an abstraction, but on Jennifer personally, and on the processes she is developing in terms of ways of looking at and thinking about her work. Trece is careful not to assume ownership of the project by coming in strong with a plan to save Jennifer and her stress. Rather, she reminds her that it is her work. At the same time, it is noteworthy how Trece does not pretend that the institutional context goes away--she deliberately reminds Jennifer that she will be graded. I think this recognition of the institution is important for Jennifer and Trece as well. It locates the institutional demands and identities, yet recognizes that they are not driving the work.

J: But you see the thing is that I have so much that I want to accomplish on it, I went to the library again last night, and that's a no-no, I shouldn't go to the library again cause I find all these books I want to read, and I read all about Anna Easnan, and I go to the library, and here's all these books by Henry Miller, so (laughs)
T: (laughs)
J: So, it's like oh my gosh, Henry Miller, and I look through the chronolog, and it's Henry Miller, 'meets Anna Easnan', oh, gosh, and so I got em. I can always read this. I can still read about this afterwards.
T: Yeah, your mom and dad don't want you to see this movie yet, but at some point you have to see Henry and Julia
J: Yeah, I'll see it. I'll see the ( ) version. That's what I have to do with all the movies.
T: O.k., so you've got, you have your outline.
J: Yeah, I'm worried. I like what I'm doing. I'm still worried that I'm doing--too much.
T: O.k., let me make a--recommendation. And this is, this is my own process stuff, but it sounds as if it might be something you can appropriate in here. At some point I believe in the creative process that one needs to step back enough from it so that you can say, 'What do I do when I'm in this process?" O.k., because I believe that art is a way out, because it's a way in? Because we get to know ourselves very well, and you are really doing this.
J: Oh, boy
T: Yes, because we don't, this early we don't get this much in tune, I think, but step back, step back and say 'What do I do when I create, and how do I best nurture that process, as well as the product, as well as myself?" Do you know that difference?

Trece is pushing Jennifer toward meta-cognition about her work, but even that term itself doesn't capture the nature of the relationship, as Trece is scaffolding Jennifer to consider her work processes as an artist--the style or approach that she has and is forming. Further, she wants Jennifer to think of self-nurturing, to reflect on her own development. There is an important interweaving here of self-process-work. A sense of self is in development just as much as a sense of artistic processes, or rather, the two are co-constructed.

J: Well, I do, I know the difference. I don't know the answers to that, all those. But I know the difference when I'm really creating, I'm really in-tune and when I'm not. Last night I was writing about math, and it was 'M. C. Escher, blah blah blah, and I really wasn't in tune, and then I shifted, to literary arts mode, and I wrote about, you know, Anna Easnan, and I shifted to dance mode, and I was there. It's crazy, I think it's a lot of psychological stuff too, and I dont' want it
T: But what you've talked about before, that math is metaphor.
J: Yeah, and I'm worried about that too (chuckles). I have all the list of what I want to put in my little booklet, too, and I don't have the actual booklet, I have to make that too, and my poetry book, and I have to finish my, my--fundamental questions, I'm really scared about that, my fundamental questions, I'm really scared about that, so help me with that
T: O.k., stay on the mode, just a moment, the 'I have to, I have to, I have to'
J: I need to
T: Well, just-that's on your list--but if you think of this as a circle (draws on paper), and let's say, let's talk about your voices, and let's say if your math voice is right here, and your Escher stuff is right here, and your other stuff is right here
J: I'm done with the math voice
T: O.k., so math is looking this way, and what you're doing is backing right up with the dance voice? So it's like this.
J: Um hm
T: That's what we know about most things, it's like love and hate, you know, you back right up to em, and you turn, and there it is. So, that's what you gotta know, that when you're with that math voice, that you're not very far away from your real authentic voice.
J: That's right, that's why I'm saying, that's why I'm trying to make it, the thing is, when I'm trying to write about the math, it's very different because I don't have, I don't have the--passion. The passion, but I don't have the interest in it

Trece, as a humanities teacher, is attempting to move Jennifer away from the view that math is so remote from her other interests, but "backs right up" to the dance voice. The concept of voice here is important not just for Jennifer, but for Trece as well, as it acts as a kind of mediator through which to talk about relationships between subjects. Trece is working to bridge toward math, to help Jennifer find a way in, and help her recognize that gaps are not so large. Most often in schooling, these distances between domains are not even discussed, let alone does one subject-area teacher try and show the relation or motivate students toward another.

T: But you have the language. How does Escher choreograph his-- (pause)
J: (finds paper, reading) "M. C. Escher was an artist who created many famous works, his most famous during the 1920's and 30's. Many people remember him for his detailed prints, yadeda. His lines allowed him to create dimensions" You see, that's crap, I don't wanna know, I don't care about that.
T: Put it in a dance terminology. How could you talk about him in a d- if you were correographing, what terms would you use? What is black and white in choreograph?
J: Stark, stark, drastic differences?
T: Well, you're talking about somebody's who's ignorant, so I don't, I don't know
J: O.k. I can, I can do that. Listen to this. (Reads) 'While there are many interesting scientific and mathematical interpretations of the artists works, I am more interested in his feelings. What prompted him to create a never-ending staircase? What did that mean to him? What is a philosophical statement of some sort? Math is connected to directly to humans in our life in that there are sections like this that we simply need to recognize. I'm saying that we need to recognize this, but I really don't understand it. Of course, I can't, though. Escher did not sit down, when he made his stairway, and say, here's why I made this, and here's what this means, and here's where I got the idea, blah, blah, and that's what I'm interested in, and that's what the whole thing of my thing is, I wanna know--
T: O.k., but that's true about everything
J: I know
T: That's true about Shakespeare--and now they're dead, they're gone. O.k., so what is your interpretation, and how can you interpret whatever it is? So, how can you interpret math, as you understand it? See, when I talk with, with Louchs
J: I talked with Louchs today too (whispered)
T: See, but when we are not in a teaching situation, but when we are students ourselves, to each other, then I'm always looking for the story way into what he is saying, I'm always looking for the metaphor, because I don't understand what he is saying. It's like when my friend says, o.k., let me teach you how to program the VCR, o.k., but it's gonna be lost, I still have to come back and say, well, which one came first? I don't get that. How do I, how do I get at it though the metaphor? And the only reason that I'm really pushing you on this is because you are stressed.
J: I'm right here, I might as well keep going for a little bit. I'm going to--
T: Yeah, and the brow is furrowed, and there's a difference when you are talking about ( ), and we need to transfer that
J: Should I um, I don't know, cause I don't have very many inferences about what Escher is about, his actual work, cause I didn't do an in-depth study of him. But he is, I don't know, I'm recognizing the connection to mathematics, I'm recognizing that very casually, I don't want it to be an in-depth study, but yet I want it to be something that I'm connected to, and yet I'm not--

Note how Trece uses language-based means to try and help Jennifer with her work on the math section of her portfolio: a focus on metaphor and vocabulary. Trece and Jennifer seem to be aligned in terms of favoring the humanities, so Trece uses what she has found to be helpful--puts herself in the place of the student in her conversations with Louchs. But, this self-locating does not need to be wholy imagined--it is real. The importance, then, of the teachers interacting and learning from one another is highlighted here in a micro-sense, when it can be drawn upon by Trece not only as a knowledge resource, but as a resource of how to reflect upon learning--sharing what helps her own processes. The bit about interpretation is a rich interdisciplinary moment--the notion of our stance with respect to artists, writers, and even past dead mathematicians will always be one of interpretation. Just the fact that the two are working on "math" is worthy of consideration--in this context and in this manner. Trece is playing the role of the insider advocate, a more experienced peer of sorts who is fully in the humanities, but appears to like and find ways to relate to math.

T: O.k., go back to the Essential Learnings, and talk about patterns . . . talk about-angles . . . ah, and I'm in tricky territory here, cause I don't know enough about it, talk about . . . what is the term Peterson is always using? Discrete? Discrete boundaries?

Again, the clear sense of knowing and relating to the other teachers and their work here--very significant for coaching Jennifer. The Essential Learnings seem a good grounding point for Trece--a place to return to in order to help Jennifer. The way in which these structures play out as aides to both teachers and students needs further thought.

J: O.k.
T: Now, talk about Escher in terms of discrete boundaries. . . . That's almost redundant. Discrete means there are boundaries. But now talk about that--the stairway . . . But if, when I ask that question, I don't really wanna know the math answer, I want to, to use that definition of discrete as I know it. And, when one is discrete, one is obeying, staying within certain boundaries. You've talked about your parents want you to stay in--to be discrete.
J: I have a whole piece about (both laugh) I have a piece about being free, and my mom was like, "Jennifer, when you get all this work done, do I get to read all this stuff?" And I was like, well, I'm gonna write a religion paper, and so I decided not to. (T laughs). And maybe I can write it first and then I'll add it.
T: That's another kind of discretion, isn't it? (chuckling)
J: Yes, it is. I mean, I have a lot of stuff I can say about religion. I mean, how I really feel about religion.
T: I know you do.
J: About how my parents feel about religion, and how blah blah blah, how Jung feels about religion, and how that is related to me in the last couple of months, but I can't--I can write that in my journal but I can't put that in my project
T: But can you, can you make an analogy, with your staircase.
J: Yeah. (several second pause, she writes on paper)
T: Using mathematical terms?
J: Yeah, I'm using, uh, I'm using mathematical terms, just the beginning of the list that I'm making, I think I have twenty terms, and by the end of this year, if I keep going and keep going, I should have a pretty big list, of what I, what I want to do, and I wanna be able to be seriously familiar with those, not just write em down, and I wanna be able to say, you know, 'What does oblique mean?' That was my first--that was the first word.
T: And that's a math term.
J: It is. And oblique also means, you know, indirect, and um
T: Absolutely.
J: So that's what I'm doing. But I'm just worried about how I'm going to put that together, and how I'm going to get my poetry book together, I've got all the poetry, I did all the hard stuff, but I'm just not sure how I'm going to get the actual book. I mean I could just make a little cardboard flap thing--
T: The other thing I think you need to realize here is that most of what you're doing here is really not going to be finished to any degree of satisfaction for you for years
J: I know
T: So give yourself permission to be in that progressive stage
J: O.k.
T: I think that is maybe where some of your stress is coming from.
J: Well, I feel like I've been cut off. I mean I went from studying psychology, and now I've had to stop, the research
T: Yeah
J: I'm like, what is it? You know, I haven't read a whole book for, awhile. Because I've been reflecting and writing and all these papers are reflections, that's all they are, they're reflecting
T: That's a stage, that's a stage in the process. In, in, we've had the conversation in dance, I mean especially in dance, you have to quit rehearsing, you have to choreograph and you have to perform, and that's what this is
J: Yes
T: And, and, there are even some performances which are works in progress. And the artist will say, 'This is a work in progress,' yeah, and that's what this is.

Metaphor is highly powerful throughout the discussion for Trece--the writing becomes a dance, etc. I'm wondering to what extent this is just reflective of Trece herself (as a writer), and to what extent metaphor is especially used by teachers in interdisciplinary situations. This would seem reasonable, as people often use metaphor as a means of bridging, especially to unknown situations. Might be worth further thought--the metaphoric thinking of this kind of teaching work. This section is also nice in terms of how it evidences the integration of the different art forms--the process aspects of writing can perhaps be better brought out for Jennifer by thinking about dance. There's an interdisciplinary moment of thinking about word meanings in different contexts here, too, with "oblique." Trece again shows how she resists giving answers, especially to simple questions that blind larger issues (how do I put my poetry book together) but prompts Jennifer to think about significant questions.

J: O.k., I'm with that. I'm still gonna study this, this is so crazy, because some people are like, 'I don't want to hear about In The American Grain again,' but, I'm like, "Are you kidding?" anyways, I do
T: Well you will
J: I know
T: And they will too
J: I know they will (both laugh)
T: That's the sneaky part about arts focus, or any kind of focus, really, once you've got it, once--
J: I know. If they didn't have the art school, I don't know. I don't know how a regular high schooler would do this, and survive, you know, without their vehicle. You know how you say that? That confused me so much. I was thinking about that last night, so what is, what was my vehicle through this whole thing? I was thinking about that, and I'm still not positive.
T: It's the sketchbook, right?
J: Well, it is--it was, but, besides the physical sense
T: It would be interesting to use that as a metaphor, you know, if you did look at this as a vehicle, I mean, who's driving it? (both laugh) Who's in the driver's seat?
J: I don't think I was driving, I think I'm drunk in the back!
T: (laughs) I love it. Was Jung?
J: I don't know. I think so. Jung and Ella Fitzgerald. They were married.
T: Oh, what an image! I love it! O.k., what are the four wheels?
J: Hmm, let's see, well, 'thinking.' No, thinking should be the, thinking should be the motor. Um, let's see, what's . . .
T: What's the steering wheel? . . . What' s the fuel?
J: Ah, passion. (both laugh)
T: O.k.
J: Fuel, I don't know, passion. That doesn't mean you have to be real good at it or know anything about it? Something you don't have and you want? I mean, I have a totally different vision of passion, when we had our writing and passion class--
T: Hmhmm
J: Than we had, I mean, you don't have to be good at it. I can be passionate about writing, and can be crappy at it, you know? O.k. Passion. Well, I don't know what the wheels are. There's smaller parts, probably. Isadora Duncan pushed me.
T: O.k., so maybe it's art forms, maybe it's dance?
J: O.k., this is crazy, alright, let's draw a little car here (both laughing). I remember that, when you said that, 'What's your vehicle?' Vehicle?! Come on, Trece, I wanna do a research paper! (both laugh) Seriously. I'm wondering about my, uh, so I'm gonna write some more about this. I worrying about--if I can sit down I can say--I don't know, I don't know where to start.

Two important links here to past classes with Trece are made by Jennifer. One is her understanding of passion--and how she can be passionate about this work even if it isn't wonderful work. This is an important motivator. Also, the link to the vehicle question/idea is something she is still puzzling over but becomes a productive metaphor for thinking about her work.

T: Well, get a pen (turns to a blank sheet of paper). What do you know? Just tell me one thing.
J: Personally, I believe that the 1920's were about freedom, they wanted to be free, to express what they wanted, and I think it's still the same now, though, with artists. I don't think it's that big of a difference. They wanted what was natural, inside of them, instead of something fabricated--going to you know, France or something. They wanted what was natural, they didn't have to travel far to see, everywhere, there's beauty, just as much in that ugly tree out there--you know, they're noticing stuff that's not always prominent, you know, just stuff on the ground.
T: O.k., so look at those five questions though, and when we are, when we are having our discussion in the humanities, when you're doing your mini-presention, this is probably gonna come up, and you've got to, this will be the connections part, what was, what was this connected to in the 20's and 30's, and what is it connected to now? If Ella Fitzgerald were a young singer today, would she have had the same problems? Racism hasn't gone away, but it's not quite
J: Right
T: You know, she has more legal possibilities. Martha Graham--if Martha Graham were a young dancer now--
J: Yeah, there's so much more freedom.
T: Because of her.
J: Right. Because like, what would happen--well, modern dance is still rebelling against itself. And, it just keeps going and keeps going, and like, 'Well, that was old, we need to be more modern,' you know, that's what modern dance is about, so I'm pretty, I just don't if when I write you want me to talk about modern dance, if you want me to talk about Jung's theories, if you want me to talk about just an overview of the 1920's--
T: What do you want to talk about? Because those questions are questions one can use for anything, I use them all the time, so pick something that you know
J: Definitely.
T: So pick something that you know
J: So I can talk about whatever I want, what I'm really well versed in
T: Sure. So you came up with freedom, go with it. What else is that connected to? The 30's? 90's? You know, the 20's and 30's, what was, what was the authority? Freedom didn't have, if this is true, freedom didn't have a lot of authority--Yeah it did! It did and it didn't

This sense of finding a thematic focus is probably the most important single moment in the interchange, but note that it couldn't come up at the outset--wouldn't have likely happened without all of the earlier mental, emotional processing of ideas, worries.

J: Y-yeah, it's the same as it is now, I think, you see someone that's free, and it's--
T: What was the establishment then, and what's the establishment now? What's that look like? That meaning, the ones maintaining something that you're breaking out of? See, that's--
J: I don't know. I personally think it's the same kind of thing. I mean, we're more liberated now as a culture, but it's the same, I mean people are still rebelling. There's always gonna be that. There's always gonna be that.

Trece has prompted toward an important historical comparison here, yet Jennifer hasn't bitten at it. Rather, Jennifer wants to say that the periods are much the same in terms of establishment. This points to a tension in this kind of work--for history knowledge, Jennifer could be pushed harder to investigate establishments of the eras, but for her own sense of developing her work, and for what she is gaining motivation to take up as a focus, pushing too hard in this direction might further confuse her or take some of her motivation.

T: There's always gonna be that. Is it--have we reached chaos yet?
J: I don't know. It depends on how you look at it. But if you, if you believe there's chaos, I don't know, when I think of it, within myself, I'm trying not to think it's chaos, because when I do I go into despair.
T: I can spraypaint your storefront with my can of spraypaint cause I'm free to do that?
J: I don't know. But you're also free, and like, to control--what was on Schidler's List--how it says true control is being ang--you know, having every qualification to kill someone and not, you know that you can be angry but you're in control, you know what the reactions gonna be and you know how it's gonna turn out--that's why I don't get angry, because you know it's not gonna help you as a person. It's not for anyone else. You don't want the guy to get off free, but you don't want to screw up yourself. I don't know if that's how it is for everyone.
T: What--that's interesting, because in the fundamental questions what we're talking about is perspective, the second one--

Again, Trece loops back to one of the several structures in place. So far, we have hit on Essential Learnings, voices, and now fundamental questions.

J: I would say that--I'm like, well, I don't know if it's anyone else, but I know it's me. I don't know anybody else that shares my exact perspective. But I think artists--do.
T: That's what that question is about--it's not about you, but about, who, with more authority supports your point of view, can you, is your point of view--if it's only you--how old are you? Fifteen?
J: (nods)
T: You don't have much authority at this point. I mean, you haven't lived long enough. So you have to go out and say--this supports my point of view in order for you to give any substance. That's what that question is about.

Here, Trece makes a broader comment about the fundamental question itself, helping Jennifer to understand that it is essentially about perspective and it's relation to authority, which relates very well to broader academic ideas about making claims and arguments. At the same time, this is not just an abstraction--Trece relates this to Jennifer and her own position as a fifteen year old.
This interchange weaves together the interpersonal, the sense of artistic development, a view of the institution, the wisdom of a practicing artist and careful counselor, and the pedagogical forms that the school has taken up, such as fundamental questions and voices. It gives a view, among many other things, of the moment by moment development and reflection of a student and the careful, sensitive coaching of a teacher who listens and thinks in broad ways about the student's position with respect to the school, her learning, and a developing sense of herself.
In rereading and reflecting on the transcript and our notes, we have focused on trying to understand what it is about the work of Trece that is both fascinating and very different from what one would see in other contexts. There are many metaphors in this transcript, a possible one is: Trece is a kind of boundary-crossing mentor for Jennifer. What's tricky is that there is not a single boundary or even kind of boundary that they are crossing, but many such boundaries. One may even say that the boundary lines themselves are somewhat indeterminate--maybe these are boundary waters that they are traveling on. Trece's role is to both point to what's over the boundary and help Jennifer get there through different means. But, and this is where the metaphor is tricky, this is not only an account of moving from one terrain to another, but of movements over boundaries and back. And, there is also the activity of simply looking at the boundaries and recognizing them that Trece engages Jennifer in. This is why we choose the word "mentor" over "guide," as mentorship is a longer-lasting relationship--not simply promoting a movement over a boundary, but helping the student build the abilities to recognize such boundaries and move on her own.
Before we describe how this plays out, we think it might be useful to think about how different this is than other roles we assign teachers, or roles that they take up. The information-dispenser teacher--the teacher as shopkeeper or "cook" has been a powerful one. In this role, teachers prepare and dispense knowledge, make it palpable for students. There have been many critiques of this role, and in these critiques it would be interesting to see further what replacement roles and/or metaphors are used. One that comes to mind, and fits well with school cultures, is the "coach." We talk about "coaching" students. In the role of the coach, though, the purpose of teacher (and maybe student) is to "win," and the objectives are rather clearly layed out about playing the game. We also talk about the teacher as a "facilitator," which conveys a sense of a teacher building a learning context. But, what is the personal, interactive relationship with a student implied in a "facilitator" Certainly teachers do more than just set up a field of interaction and step back, watching how everything happens.
As a boundary-crossing mentor, Trece helps Jennifer traverse three significant types of boundaries in her work: personal/educational, product/processes, and various disciplinary boundaries. To cross and recognize these boundaries, we discuss different "bridges" that Trece uses in her work with Jennifer. Personal/educational boundaries may be those most readily apparent in the transcript. Jennifer is full of anxiety, so Trece has to help her move from all of this personal angst about her work into considering the ideas and processes of the work. Aesthetics are an important bridge here--Trece prompts Jennifer to think about art work and its association with personal pain or happiness. What prompts expression? Also, Trece moves Jennifer back into her own memories as a resource for thinking about art and life.
Jennifer and Trece clearly have a history together that is beyond that of most teacher-student relationships, especially in high school. Jennifer opens up to Trece freely about her personal life well beyond school, which Trece is able to draw upon as well as listen to and comment on. For instance, the topic of religion is something that Jennifer brings out of a personal past and is struggling with. Part of this struggle seems to be personal, and yet also related to some of her studies, such as research into Jung. Jennifer's relationship with Trece permits her the space to explore some of these feelings and struggles--the relationship itself is a type of bridge (as well as the writings that Jennifer is doing as part of her work with Trece, such as on the topic of religion. Note that Trece, and not Jennifer's parents, will be the audience.) Further, one rich segment of dialogue is the exchange about grades. What is valuable here is that Trece helps Jennifer to recognize the boundary between the personal and the educational, in so far as education is an institutionalized experience. When Trece says, "Wait, you will get a grade," this moment is important as Trece is not permitting either Jennifer or herself to misrecognize the relationship between the personal and institutionalized education--to pretend that all is at stake here is their friendship. Trece avoids this slip into the romantic and helps Jennifer to see the role of grading and put it in perspective--grades are not most important, but they are present. (And definitely not, in this case, the motivational bridge themselves, which is clearly so in many school contexts.) There are other significant moments of personal/educational boundary crossing that Trece mentors. One comes into the talk out of the humanities class and a discussion about passion. Jennifer has taken from that discussion that passion and expertise do not have to be directly related, but that (personal) passion itself can be a vehicle for moving toward expertise. This seems to have been a very important insight for her.
Finally, Trece's remarks toward the end of the talk about using others' ideas and works to authorize a point of view is an important way of bridging away from the personally authoritative stance ("this is so because I think/feel it is so") toward academic writing. In college composition, this is one of the most dominant lessons that we work on teaching our freshmen to recognize--support for opinions. It is not particularly unusual that Trece brings it up here, but we value how she gives a reason for it--going back to the personal and asking Jennifer how old she is. Of course, age isn't really the point, or at least not the whole point. Older people, too, have to support their opinions (although, often, less so). But, it is a meaningful way of helping Jennifer to recognize the move from the personal to the educational. In similar contexts, what often happens with teachers is just a repetition of the mantra "support your thesis, support your thesis." To actually begin to explore why this is important by connecting with the limits of Jennifer's personal experience is wise, not only because it's a bridge, but because this bridge has meaning for Jennifer--so much of what she thinks and does, and the decisions she makes, are based upon the personal.
The boundary crossings between artistic processes and products are highly related to the personal/educational boundaries, in that Jennifer keeps prompting toward a product, which she knows is necessary for the schooling context, and yet Trece, as a mentor, shifts her back toward the processes of creative work. Jennifer wants to fix on the tasks of getting the project done, even detailed tasks of the project's physical form, and yet Trece senses that the real importance of getting the task of the project completed is very small compared to Jennifer's understanding of her own work processes and sense of self as creator that is being developed through them. Trece's mentoring here is impressive as compared with teacher work in other contexts, as even the "coach" wants to see final products, and student projects, within the institution of schooling, are more readily measured, stacked up and sorted, than are students as reflective, self-directed persons, but Trece insists on choosing the higher, more long terms goals of personal development.
The most important type of bridge here, interestingly, is not the person of Jennifer (as in the last) but the person of Trece. She draws upon her own experiences and processes as a creator to mentor Jennifer. She brackets her own artistic processes as personal, yet at the same time they are powerful for that reason. Process is everywhere in education these days--even Warriner's guide to grammar has an account of The Writing Process (capitals TWP!) in it. But, here what is happening is not someone else's processes, or process as an abstraction, but an account of "my own" processes as potentially helpful to you. From an apprenticeship perspective, this is arguably one of the most important aspects of the transcript. Trece's self-reflections, and ways of being artistic are constructed as a bridge within these moments of apprenticeship. Most importantly, in my view, is that a notion of process is never removed from a sense of person and personal development. Although school teachers sometimes recognize that there are many alternate processes, seldom do they give accounts of their own work processes, or even more seldom demonstrate them (which Trece does throughout this talk). Such accounts and modeling embed the process in personal development, and seem an excellent motivator for student self-process reflection and development. Another form of bridge for product/process boundaries, likely also related to Trece's own experiences, is the metaphor of "vehicle" that appears to be powerful for Jennifer. Trece has asked the students "What's your vehicle?", which motivates Jennifer to think about her own processes. This reflection becomes focused upon the current project when the two play the metaphor out for a time--considering the actual parts of a vehicle, leading Jennifer to actually begin to sketch a vehicle.
Most interesting are attempted crossings of disciplinary boundaries in this transcript is that Trece draws upon bridges which are part of a common school culture that is under construction (as well as more personal bridges). That is, here you can see that her mentoring itself participates in structures of mentoring that the school is developing, especially the Essential Learnings, the voices, and the five guiding questions of inquiry. The most evident disciplinary struggle in the transcript is Jennifer's attempts to move over to math. Like Trece, Jennifer is not a "math person." She resists math, does not want to delve into it deeply, but knows, institutionally, that she needs to account for math learning and relate her work to it. How can Trece, as a humanities teacher who also admittedly does not have strong math skills, mentor Jennifer in this aspect of her work?
In many school contexts, this would happen by Trece going to the textbook with Jennifer and trying to make sense of the assignment. In still many others, the teacher might listen to the personal side of the struggle, but admit that her skills were weak and simply try and get the student to set up an appointment with the other teacher. We find it fascinating that as a boundary-crossing mentor Trece does neither. She recognizes her own knowledge limitations, yet she offers several forms of bridging to move Jennifer into mathematics exploration and learning. The Essential Learnings, voices, and guiding inquiry questions all play an important role here, as they are types of texts that are valued by the school--they are bridges themselves that Trece can refer back to. They condense the "text" of math, if you will, into broader goals that transcend individual teachers--Trece can pick them up and uses them to mentor Jennifer. (Another move that might happen in some school contexts is that the teacher would try and imagine what another disciplinary teacher "wants"--there is a sense in such a context that the teacher herself represents the entire discipline, rather than some set of coherent goals).
Thus, the story we would tell from this transcript is that these school structures (Essential Learnings, etc.) are highly significant not only for students, but also for teachers in mentoring students to understand and cross boundaries. Trece uses them in a number of ways: discussing how the math voice "backs right up to the dance voice," prompting Jennifer back to the Essential Learnings in math, and also toward the five inquiry questions. The Essential Learnings can be carried into this mentoring session itself, condensed on a sheet of paper, and serve as a scaffold for both Jennifer and Trece. But there is also a very personal sense in which Trece helps Jennifer understand and recognize disciplinary goals and boundaries--she talks about Louchs and her own efforts to make meaning of what he is saying. (This highly relates to the section above--Trece modeling herself as meaning-maker.)
The value of teachers knowing and understanding one another is important in this moment. For Trece and Louchs, this has been encouraged by a common history together at a former school, as well as through their interactions at VSAA. Finally, in addition to school-based bridges as developed in commonly used sketches of disciplinary knowledge (Essential Learnings) and commonly held values of disciplinary boundary-crossing (voices, inquiry questions), and in addition to powerful personal connections, Trece makes use of her own disciplinary tools or bridges to help motivate Jennifer and help her make meaning of another discipline (math), including metaphor, vocabulary meanings, and knowing by way of story. These are important bridges not only because they originate with Trece's disciplinary culture, and thus are ready to hand for her, but also because Jennifer, like Trece, is also more oriented toward the humanities and may find them valuable.
While here I've separated out types of boundaries for further analysis, it is their interweaving that is compelling. How do personal/educational, product/process, and disciplinary boundaries interplay with one another, and how do Trece (and Jennifer) orchestrate moves that cross not only one, but several boundaries within moments? This might be the type of analysis that could be done further, by perhaps focusing on a shorter segment of the transcript. And, these categories of boundaries themselves might be found to be incomplete in such an analysis.

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