Giving Compass' Take:

• Arts educators do not have enough training development to effectively work with students with disabilities. Berklee College of Arts and Music is going to host a conference that will develop suggestions for how higher education institutions can develop better training for this issue area. 

• How can schools work to provide training for educators in this field? 

• Read about how schools are preparing students with disabilities with more career opportunities. 

The arts provide greater opportunities for students with disabilities, including autism and intellectual disabilities, to be included in classes with their non-disabled peers, but most teachers of the arts don’t have sufficient training in working with these students, according to a recent article by Jenna Gabriel, the manager of special education at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Gabriel writes that most arts education programs only offer preservice teachers one course on special education and that only about a quarter of arts teachers in schools have had college coursework on teaching students with special needs.

The article notes that this summer, directors of arts education programs at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia — both of which include working with special needs as part of their teacher preparation programs — will hold a convening for faculty members and develop recommendations on how higher education institutions can increase future teachers’ skills in this area.

In an earlier report from the Kennedy Center, Juliann Dorff of Kent State University describes an effort to give preservice arts teachers the opportunity to plan lessons, teach them in collaboration with an arts teacher and learn from intervention specialists in local schools. “Exposure to and experience with special needs students helps develop teacher efficacy in preservice teachers,” she writes.

Read the full article about arts education for students with disabilities by  Linda Jacobson at Educationdive