This post is from Ulung Tanoto. It's always fun to see which instruments Ulung brings into a classroom - guitar, drums, flute, saxophone, harmonica, and instruments from his native Indonesia have made appearances thus far -- and we still have a dozen days of residency work to go!
We are actors, musicians and dancers. And we are also teachers. Is that what makes us teaching artists? It's not that simple. After our first residency at Shuford Elementary, our manager, Rebecca Nussbaum brought us a piece of paper that, I have to admit, shocked me a little. That paper (contains information) about levels of art integration - how deep does art integration can reach the effectiveness of learning. (A lot of questions appeared in my mind. Have I done everything right? It seemed so difficult to achieve the top level of art integration in just 2 weeks of residency. Will the kids ever get it? I knew that (the point of showing us that paper) is to encourage us to be a better teaching artist team. And that's, to me, is the key that define teaching artist. Teaching artist has to know the art of teaching and keep exploring the way of art integration. I believe that we are a good teaching artist team because we have strong art background (and we are always challenged to always explore our artistry???). And, I feel more and more confident doing what I do as days gone by, thinking that I'm not pursuing an immediate result. (Instead, we are) planting seeds of creative learning to these young minds in a fun way.
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