Arts in Education

Message from the Director

Steve Seidel, Director Welcome to the Arts in Education Program's website! We hope you will find here a useful array of information and features about the program. Whether you are considering applying to the program or are simply interested in the roles of the arts in education, we hope this website provides you with insights and provokes your interest.

Our focus in this program is intentionally broad. We aim to explore both the current realities and the rich possibilities that exist for including the arts in all kinds of educational settings with a wide range of students--across age levels, in and outside of schools, across diverse cultural contexts, and across all artistic domains. We believe the field of arts education is growing and developing and that this development will be well served by educators who have a "big picture" of the field and a vision of how it can--and should--further evolve. In the program, we both study and conduct our own research into the history, policies, practices, philosophies, conditions, and learning theories of the arts in education.

In addition to directing the Arts in Education Program, I also serve as director of Project Zero, a research organization here at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Project Zero has been conducting research on learning in and through the arts since 1967, and I invite you to visit the PZ website, if you have further interest in this field. Please note, as well, Howard Gardner's essay on "Project Zero and the Arts in Education Program: Passion Tempered by Discipline" on this website. As Gardner's essay describes, the Arts in Education Program has a long history of close ties with Project Zero. Indeed, Jessica Davis, the founder and former director of the Arts in Education program, was a colleague at Project Zero for many years before founding the program. Further, many of AIE's "arts related" faculty members (e.g., Howard Gardner, David Perkins, and Shari Tishman) have done research at Project Zero and much of that research has been included in the program's core course. David Perkins and Howard Gardner, both senior faculty at HGSE, were founding members of Project Zero and shared the director role of PZ for over 30 years. For many years, HGSE students and AIE students, in particular, have participated in Project Zero research studies as members of the research teams and we are always looking for ways to expand those research opportunities.

Now in my fourth year as director of the HGSE Arts in Education Program (in its own 12th year of existence), I can happily report that it has been a wonderful experience.

Whatever your interest in this program, please feel free to contact us. We want to hear your thoughts and questions.