Thursday, November 27, 2014

Wisdom from Lindsey

My angel was married on September 13, 2014 and I am a proud papa for certain. I will resist the temptation to gush here but I feel compelled to offer just one example of why I believe the world is a better place with her in it. Close friends, family and assorted planners, photographers and foodservice personnel may have noticed that the table settings featured some wisdom that I know my daughter selected for custom centerpieces. Without further editorial comment (they are presented here) from my notes:  
  • To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived is to have succeeded.
  • Life is what we make it -- always has been, always will be.
  • You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
  • No dream is too high for those with their eyes on the sky.
  • The True voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in finding new eyes.
  • Things don’t just happen. You make them happen.
  • Love is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
  • I wish for you the ability to see yourself as others see you. Then you would realize what a truly special person you are.
  • The Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
  • We sat side by side in the morning light and looked out on our future together
Needless to say, I’m confident my little girl has her head on straight.


Monday, November 17, 2014

What the Arts Teach...

Special Interest Oral Presentation
Base Group Assignment - EDU Foundations of Education

Emily Bone
Lola Groves
Ashley Kluge
Wesley Morgan
Stacy Wahl

Topic:  The Value of Arts in Education

Elliot Eisner’s 10 Lessons Arts Teach has become something of a declaration for those interested in championing the arts in education. Our presentation provides, in just 15 minutes, compelling evidence in support of the arts as an essential part of the overall educational experience. Emily Bone provides examples applied to early education. Lola Groves discusses the impact of participation in Band. Ashley Kluge offers findings from the Chorus Impact Study in further support of music.  Wesley Morgan summarizes research results on the value of field trips (in particular for visual arts). Stacy Wahl uses a report by the Center of Arts Education that examines the correlation between the arts and graduation rates in NYC.  

Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA. - See more at:
http://www.arteducators.org/advocacy

Samuelsson, I. P., Carlsson, M. A., Olsson, B., Pramling, N., & Wallerstedt, C. (2009). The art of teaching children the arts: music, dance and poetry with children aged 2-8 years old. International Journal Of Early Years Education,17(2), 119-135. doi:10.1080/09669760902982323.
Chorus America, Chorus Impact Study - How Children, Adults, and Communities Benefit from Choruses. (Chorus America 2009)

JAY P. GREENE, BRIAN KISIDA, and DANIEL H. BOWEN The Educational Value of the Field Trip - Education Next (Winter 2014)

Staying in School Arts Education and New York City High School Graduation Rates – A Report, The Center for Arts Education (October 2009) 

What the arts teach

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it
is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source  and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young  what adults believe is important.


SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA. - See more at: http://www.arteducators.org/advocacy/10-lessons-the-arts-teach#sthash.I2x6Xz0g.dpuf