Imagine this: you're a theatre arts organization that has a really strong education branch. You teach classes at multiple venues, you hold a summer camp, you do in-school education, and there's a talkback after every show. In order to do all these miraculous things and reach all of the underserved and underfunded, you need your own finances: federal or state grants, or perhaps a generous independent donor.
To convince people to give you money,
You have to somehow PROVE
that you are doing good things for the children.
amount of funding = X * number of children reached
Solve for X
Where X is how much you affect the lives of children.
X cannot be anecdotal evidence - testimonials from the kids, from the parents, from the teachers... these are great, but they are anecdotal, which the dictionary will tell you means "unnecessary."
You have to do the math.
That X variable is often something called "fulfilled grant requirements..." and these requirements are usually invented by the people you are convincing (funders on the left side of the equation) rather than the people being effected (children on the right side of the equation.) Funders often have not ever been in a classroom, let alone your classroom. You can't just show them a lesson plan, or promise that you've enacted that lesson plan, or get a kid to tell them how much they enjoyed their time in class. There have to be numbers.
This is where "emotional intelligence surveys" come into play. These surveys would be great measuring sticks if our children weren't already saturated in multiple choice tests throughout their school year. When we immerse the young generation in a world of right and wrong answers, of "you better test well so your teachers don't get fired," a strange and scary limbo inbetween No Child Left Behind But You Better Race To The Top... you can't had them a "survey" and expect them not to freak out about it.
Surveys are problematic no matter which way you slice it. And we haven't figured out anything better to do. Even though one of the defining characteristics of ART is the very fact that it immeasurable, we still need to scramble for an art ruler to show how our work affects change in the minds of young people.
Pretty sure this is just a thing that is going to drive me mad for my entire career.
To convince people to give you money,
You have to somehow PROVE
that you are doing good things for the children.
amount of funding = X * number of children reached
Solve for X
Where X is how much you affect the lives of children.
X cannot be anecdotal evidence - testimonials from the kids, from the parents, from the teachers... these are great, but they are anecdotal, which the dictionary will tell you means "unnecessary."
You have to do the math.
That X variable is often something called "fulfilled grant requirements..." and these requirements are usually invented by the people you are convincing (funders on the left side of the equation) rather than the people being effected (children on the right side of the equation.) Funders often have not ever been in a classroom, let alone your classroom. You can't just show them a lesson plan, or promise that you've enacted that lesson plan, or get a kid to tell them how much they enjoyed their time in class. There have to be numbers.
This is where "emotional intelligence surveys" come into play. These surveys would be great measuring sticks if our children weren't already saturated in multiple choice tests throughout their school year. When we immerse the young generation in a world of right and wrong answers, of "you better test well so your teachers don't get fired," a strange and scary limbo inbetween No Child Left Behind But You Better Race To The Top... you can't had them a "survey" and expect them not to freak out about it.
Surveys are problematic no matter which way you slice it. And we haven't figured out anything better to do. Even though one of the defining characteristics of ART is the very fact that it immeasurable, we still need to scramble for an art ruler to show how our work affects change in the minds of young people.
Pretty sure this is just a thing that is going to drive me mad for my entire career.