Kristen Engebretsen

I hope that everyone has enjoyed reading the thoughts from leaders both in and outside our field during this blog salon in honor of National Arts in Education Week.

As we design and teach our youth programs, we need to keep the end in mind. Where are our students going to end up? How can we help them get there? Our schools’ guidance counselors can’t do everything—they are overburdened, have little arts content expertise, and limited interaction with each student.

That means that it is up to teachers, parents, community members, and those of us that work at arts organizations to guide our students. We need to give students real world experiences, provide them field trips to community organizations and businesses, inform them about career options, and guide them to areas where they are motivated and can excel.

During the salon, we heard examples of how this is already happening:

1)     Alyx’s story about helping students with their first job.
2)    Deutsche Bank’s collaboration with the Partnership for After School Education to create a comprehensive Youth Arts Career Guide.

3)    And a new collaboration between folks in the art world and folks in the career and technical education world.
4)    And many more!

I hope that as you continue working with youth in an educational setting that you will remember a few takeaways from this salon:

1)    Begin with the end in mind—help prepare students for what will happen after your class ends.
2)    Partner with other teachers or organizations to align your work in hopes of making the deepest impact possible for students—this can help prepare students that are both college and career ready.
3)    It is not enough to apply best practices in our work…we must also share them. Please share your experiences, your successes, and your challenges with your colleagues and people from both inside and outside our field. This will raise the bar for everyone. And please feel free to share any final thoughts on this subject in the comments section below.

Thanks for following our salon on Career Development and the Role of Arts Education!

To view the salon in its entirety, please visit: http://blog.artsusa.org/tag/september-2011-blog-salon/