I am getting some great comments on my But Do You Really Think It is Good For You entry. Better than I expected really.
I was going to do a response to some of the comments, but between wanting to wait for more comments to come in (since they seem to be doing so) and finding I wanted to ponder my responses a little more, I have decided to tackle something else.
When I was touching on how difficult it can be to be a blogger and professor and thinking about how people expressed their feelings about the arts, I couldn’t help but think back to my own experience teaching a theatre appreciation class.
I have really enjoyed most of the theatre classes I have taught, but the one class I have felt most intellectually and idealistically torn over was the appreciation class.
Part of the problem I think was the expectations everyone had for it. For most students, it was an easy way to get fine arts credit for their liberal arts degree. Some came to class with an honest desire to learn more about the theatre, most came or were advised to come to get their credit and get out.
For the school the class was a way to keep their dollar per student ratio down. Since most theatre classes are intensive and low student to teacher ratios are necessary, the professor’s salary divided by the number of students in class results in a rather high number. But take a department as a whole, if you offer two or three sections of a class with 400 people in each section, you offset that high salary ratio and make the department look productive.
As horrible as this may sound, remember this is essentially the same way many funding institutions assess the effectiveness of their grants–by number of people served by programs they underwrote. Non-profit arts organizations often take on programs that don’t serve their mission well so that they can get funding to support their core interests. In the same regard, theatre departments create really poor environments for cultivating appreciation in an attempt to justify and maintain their existence in order to pursue their main interests–educating theatre majors. (And one wonders if this is where the future arts leaders learn the lesson of supporting the mission by doing what is not in the best interests.)
Four hundred people in a room isn’t necessarily bad, of course. By many accounts you would call it a nice atmosphere in which to enjoy the arts. But if there are 300 people who don’t want to be there and would rather talk on their cell phones or to each other, you got a pretty crappy atmosphere for the 100 who are interested in the subject matter. One professor and one TA have a hard time competing with and controlling that sort of disinterest.
Asking people to leave ellicited the “I paid, I got a right to be here” response. Challenging people to defend why their dollar was more valuable than the dollar of the people who were interested and wanted to pay attention earned some uninterrupted time. Lack of regard returned in subsequent classes and different arguments for attention had to be used.
Lest people be tempted to look at my resume in an attempt to figure out where I am talking about. Let me simply state, it is like this all over. A similar situation existed where I did my graduate work and where my friends went to school. It probably exists where many readers go/went to school. Certainly it occurs more in large university settings than in smaller colleges just by stint of enrollment numbers.
The thing is, the existence of these classes is also harmful to students pursuing performance as a major. This is most dismally illustrated at college performances said students are required to attend. Because they don’t want to ruin their weekends, these students will buy tickets to the Wednesday or Thursday performance thereby providing the student performers with the harrowing experience of playing to the most unresponsive audience they will ever meet. (While I can’t speak for all fine arts appreciation classes, I have noticed the same trend in music appreciation audiences.)
The Intro students will attempt to arrive late or leave early and get their attendance slip validated. Since the house staff (mostly comprised of students) has been instructed to apply the attendance rules strictly, an antagonistic relationship often developes. The Intro students resents that they are being compelled to attend and the theatre major resents that it is necessary to compel attendance. (If the school doesn’t enjoy strong community attendance, the theatre major may grow to feel this is true for all audiences.)
The real question is a takes the form of a debate of sorts- Are schools failing students by not giving them a more conducive environments in which to cultivate an interest and appreciation of art. OR Are schools wisely only investing an appropriate portion of their resources because so few of the students enrolling in the class have a genuine interest in detailed explorations and discussions of theatre.
Of course, this begs the question, if so few students are interested, why are they required to take the course? The answer most likely is that some group of people somewhere argued that exposure to the fine arts would make students better, more well-rounded citizens.
Which all gets back to the original question–is there a better way that makes sense economically and from an education philosophy point of view and creates a positive experience for all?
Is there anyone out there in large schools doing it?
I’ve never understood why university arts departments seem to take this view that the students who want to become artists will be taught to be artists and the other students, who will become audience members, will be taught to be audience members. As has already been mentioned in earlier comments, some of the very very “best” audience members are those who have practiced the art form themselves as amateurs. We cannot expect large numbers of students to be engaged in a relatively passive theater appreciation lecture any more than we can in a chemistry lecture that has no lab component–this teaching challenge is by no means confined to the arts. The best theater programs are those that involve their students in *every* aspect of theater, not just performance. There is real value in participating in theater through marketing, through box office, through (gasp!) fundraising, through budget preparation,through construction, through production management—all tasks that university departments will as often as not farm out to professionals, or to work-study students. The technical theater class might build the set or sew the costumes, but not nearly enough students are taught how to integrate the myriad other skills they might have in business or management into the arts environment. Give them a vested stake in one production, and their interest in others will certainly increase. I realize this does not solve your problem of student-teacher ratio, but it would certainly make for more effective teaching.
Let’s face it, most college students want to do as little work as possible to give them time to party. They take “clapping for credit” courses to get the most number of credits for the least amount of work. If they show no interest in the arts, that’s OK. Whether you see it or not, you have planted a seed in their feeble little brains. When they grow up and become responsible adults, that seed will germinate and they will have vaguely fond recollections of the arts. That is the time they will seek out opportunities to enrich themselves.