Arts Educationfrom Classroom to the 21st Century Workplace
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), published by the U.S. Department of Labor suggests that there are five competencies that provide the skills and personal qualities needed for solid job performance. They include the following:
Resources: allocating time, money, materials, space, and staff;
(Consider how planning and producing a dramatic performance or concert, planning for and creating a large mural, or producing a multimedia report can develop these skills.)
Interpersonal Skills: working on teams, teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating, and working well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds;
(Consider how being a member of a theatrical cast or of a creative dramatics session or of an orchestra or of a cooperative visual arts project can develop these skills.)
Information: acquiring and evaluating data, organizing and maintaining files, interpreting and communicating, and using computers to process information;
(Consider how managing a theatrical or dance production, including creating costumes, sets, lighting, and staging or organizing multimedia exhibit, or keeping records of and assessing a variety of other arts projects can develop these skills.)
Systems: understanding social, organizational, and technological systems, monitoring and correcting performance, and designing or improving systems;
(Consider the seamless connection between motivation, learning, assessment, and practical application leading to "deep understanding" and the development of "whole systems" perspectives.)
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Technology: selecting equipment and tools, applying technology to specific tasks, and maintaining and troubleshooting technologies.
(Consider how choosing the right brushes, colors, and other materials for a visual arts project or knowing how to attend to technical problems during a rehearsal or performance of a play can develop these skills.)
According to the SCANS report these competencies require:
Basic Skills: reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking and listening;
(Consider that the arts are tools that can help all students at every ability level to master the basic skills faster and with greater retention. We learn best by doing. For many students, abstractions such as algebra, grammar, and reading comprehension can best be learned through concrete experiences that the arts provide.)
Thinking Skills: thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, seeing things in the mind's eye, knowing how to learn, and reasoning;
(Consider how in each of the arts, the above thinking skills are exercised and developed. All of the arts challenge and facilitate the development of higher order thinking skills.)
- Personal Qualities: individual responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management and integrity;
(Consider how the young actor or musician or painter or dancer develops these skills both as a member of a group and as an individual responsible for his/her contribution to the whole. Self-esteem comes from recognizing and using one's strengths to succeed.)
The report suggests that "a new kind of American worker is being ordered up. And this new worker will be expected to have a broad set of skills that were previously required only of supervisors and management."
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