Arts in Education Booking Conference
Columbia, SC
Here's what a few of the sponsors had to say about the AIE Booking Conference:
Ashley River Elementary School
Foster Park Elementary School, Union County
Foster Park Elementary School teachers Jean Young and Amy Truitt attend the annual Arts in Education Booking Conference so they can learn more about the artists than they could by viewing an artist's Web site. Young, who teaches music at the Union County-based elementary school, says she is able to contract one week-long residency per year. The Booking Conference allows her to get a feel for each artist's personality and his or her repertoire of programs. Happy with the experience she had with the Borenya West African Drum and Dance residency she booked last year, Young plans to continue targeting artists whose programs are hands-on and involve the students. She said that her third and fourth graders loved learning how to dance and play the drums, and that each student was more than happy to show off their skills during the presentation at the end of the residency.
Ashley River Elementary School, Charleston County
Art teachers from Ashley River, a creative arts elementary school in Charleston, attend the annual Arts in Education Booking Conference to find artists whose expertise is different from their own. They look for artists who are willing to collaborate with others. Jeff Jordan, a drama teacher at Ashley River, says that along with the five specialized art teachers, the school also sends one classroom teacher to the conference to meet various artists and discover new ways to use the arts to reach children who do not easily learn through traditional teaching methods. Booking at least five residencies per year, Ashley River art teachers prefer artists who are flexible and able to mold their programs to fit various grade levels and curriculums.
M.C. Riley Elementary School, Bluffton County
With nearly 30 years of teaching experience, Gail Paulik, a reading teacher at M.C. Riley Elementary School in Bluffton County, is very familiar with booking artists. She contracts one week-long residency per grade level each year - a total of six residencies annually.
She has welcomed many artists into her schools throughout the past 16 years and says that she meets new artists every year at the South Carolina Arts Commission's Arts in Education Booking Conference. "The conference provides a perfect place to meet new artists and allows me to touch base with resident artists whom I've already booked for the upcoming year," said Paulik. "With a classroom full of kids all day, I have a hard time reaching artists, who are normally on the road themselves."
A reading teacher, Paulik experiments with her artist residencies by mixing various art disciplines with different grade levels. For example, she once integrated a sweetgrass basket-making residency into a third-grade history class to illustrate South Carolina culture. With certain grade levels, she has a specific goal in mind. For instance, she books poetry residencies for her fourth-graders to prepare them for assessment tests.
Another veteran from M.C. Riley, Barbara Streitenberger, also attends the conference to meet new faces. "The conference allows me to actually see - not just read about - what each artist plans to do in the classroom," Streitenberger said.
Streitenberger, who has been teaching for nine years, has found that residencies with a hands-on approach are more likely to capture her students' attention. "Residencies using elements like clay and musical instruments have been successful both in my classroom and in others throughout the school," she said.