What we know about teaching artists…from you!
It seems like ages ago that we sent out our annual Teaching Artist Survey – and 170 of you answered! Like many of you, we said goodbye to summer and dove right into buying our school supplies, looking for our long-sleeved t-shirts and planning our fall programs. But we wanted to say thank you to all who participated and tell you what we learned.
Here’s what we learned from you –
Where You Work: You continue to work in Philadelphia public schools (38%) although fewer are working in other schools (33% down from 41% in 2018). More of you are working with cultural organizations and with other kinds of nonprofit organizations.
Who You Work With: The greatest percentage of you work with elementary and middle school age students (56%) with about half of you working with teens and adults. Less than a quarter of you work with pre-K students and one-third work with senior adults.
What Kinds of Programs You Present: Half of you present multiple-visit programs in a school, down from almost 60% last year. You are presenting fewer one-time programs in schools (26%) and more one-time programs at cultural organizations than last year (29% up from 19%).
How You Find Work: About a third of you work through a cultural organization as an employee and many fewer work as an independent contractor than last year (32% down from 49%). Most importantly, over 60% of you are securing work on your own.
How You Learn: More of those who participated in the survey came to Bartol workshops (44% up from 37%) and fewer received professional development opportunities from an organization you are affiliated with (36% down from 46%). Almost a third of you did not participate in any professional development at all.
What’s Next: We take all of this information along with your specific feedback on our programs to design our teaching artist workshops that are kicking off now! You can see what’s on tap on our website and stay tuned for the next blog post to learn more about what programs we have planned for this fall.
Most importantly, encourage your friends and colleagues to get on our mailing list so more people know about the resources we offer to teaching artists! Help us spread the word!