me arts ed

A Quick Trip North

At the end of last week I made a trip to Fort Kent for a presentation to the school board. While I was there I learned that art/theater teacher Doug Clapp was in Greece with students for the week. Perhaps he will post a comment and let us know how the trip went! And, anyone else out there, please tell us about trips you took with students during vacation week. I know there is nothing like traveling with students!!

What BEAUTIFUL country it is up in the county! I knew it would be colder and that I was likely not to see any daffodils like I have at my house. I was hoping to see a moose or two. No moose, plenty of ice and the view of Katahdin on the way home was SPECTACULAR!!! This photo I took while driving, doesn’t do it justice, but I just had to share it! I hope your vacation week was GREAT!

Camden Hills High School music educators Nancy Rowe and Kim Murphy recently took 163 music students to Norfolk, VA for the North American Music Festival. You can read the entire article (it is GREAT) published in Village Soup by clicking here.

Art Teacher Wendy Libby, from Fruit Street School in Bangor, has her students participating in the 15th annual HOPE – Help Organize Peace Earthwide – Festival at the University of Maine campus in Orono. Students have created collages and written letters. Read the details at this link from the Bangor Daily News.

Created by Barbara's son Andrew

MLTI Statewide Integration Mentor, Barbara Greenstone, has a blog called Teaching With Comics. She has posted many good ideas and food for thought. You can access Barbara’s blog at http://comicteacher.wordpress.com/ or you can go to the blogroll on the bottom right side of meartsed blog and click on: Teaching With Comics. (Yes, Barb is married to music educator Paul Greenstone). Speaking of comics… please click here for a link to an interesting article from the New York Times, January 2009, written by April Dembosky: Listening to Schroeder: ‘Peanuts’ Scholars Find Messages in Cartoon’s Scores.

Glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly creates amazing work. This link has beautiful photos of his work and a resource guide with many outstanding ideas. Click here to download the .pdf document. This second article from the Georgia Bulletin is about an inspired teacher and the work she did with her students using Chihuly’s work as inspiration. Please click here.

Pictures Sounds Numbers Words… Teaching with Technology

This online conference will take place May 4-7, 2009. Completely online, this conference will feature former Governor of Maine Angus King as the keynote speaker, as well as 28 engaging and inspiring workshop sessions conducted by, and for, educational professionals interested in teaching and learning with technology… all right from the comfort of your own computer.

Using web-based technologies to communicate and collaborate, this event is for educators interested in conversation around teaching and learning with technology, and will offer an opportunity for sharing and discussing examples of best practice using technology to creatively teach and inspire.

Participants will interact and share ideas with both presenters and peers in a live, virtual environment. A broadband Internet connection, a web browser, and a phone are required for live participation. Every workshop will be recorded and made available for viewing after the live event has concluded so that you won’t miss any of the sessions. For both live and recorded sessions… you will be able to join in on the conversation, and workshop presenter resources will also be mace available for download.

Please join in on this GREAT opportunity! For more information click here.

Bangor High School Student Represents Maine in Recitation Finals

At 9AM on Monday, April 27, 2009, William Whitham, from Bangor High School, will compete against 52 other students in the national finals of Poetry Out Loud in Washington, D.C. The Poetry Out Loud competition is organized nationally by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and at the state level by each state’s arts commission or council.

In February ten students, out of an incredible beginning total of 2700, from high schools across Maine competed in the state finals of Poetry Out Loud at the Camden Opera House.

The final, organized by the Maine Arts Commission, was a closely contested event that highlighted the exceptional talents of Maine’s students. At the end of the evening, William Whitham was selected as state champion. He now goes on to represent Maine in the national finals with the hope of securing the first prize of a $20,000 college scholarship.

Highlights of the Maine State Finals, that included extended interviews with the students, can be seen on YouTube at this link.

Extending the Dance Map: A Northern New England Rural Dance Project

Extending the Dance Map has been providing professional development for dancers interested in working in rural schools. And to develop a network for communication and information-sharing that links dancers, resources and opportunities throughout our region.

Extending the Dance Map is a program of the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, presented in partnership with the New England Consortium of Artist-Educator Professionals, the Vermont Arts Council, the New Hampshire State Council on teh Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, and in cooperation with the Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont Departments of Education. The project is funded by the Dana Foundation’s Arts Education Rural Initiative and by the state arts councils.

The program started with training sessions to prepare dancers to teach dance in K-12 schools. At the conclusion of the initial training dancers were placed with schools for short residencies.

This past week I had the opportunity to visit Ella Burr School in Lincoln, ME to observe the “program in action”. Dancer Helena Melone worked with teachers at the school as part of a 5-day residency. On the last day four classes of 4th graders staged their performances. I was very impressed with what Helena had accomplished with the students in a short time. They have retained their positions, moves and the story line and were eager to practice over and over. Helena connected the dance with their Maine studies unit on the ocean, forest, fresh water and bog. All of the students were engaged and offered suggestions on changes to bring their dance to a different level. I could see the transformation including improvement and pride right before my eyes.

In Maine additional partners were the Maine Alliance for Arts Education, Dance Education in Maine Schools, Husson College and Dance Resources, LLC.

Nancy Salmon has done an excellent job facilitating the program in Maine. Her years of experience as a dance educator were immeasurable in the success of the Extending the Dance Map program. Congratulations to all who have contributed to the success!

You can view more pictures of the dance residency at Ella Burr School by clicking here.

Thank you to Nancy Salmon for the information for this post.

Learning Opportunity at Point Lookout

photo by Charles Hamm, Belfast HS art teacher

On Friday, April 10, 2009 85 educators representing K-Higher Education from visual arts, world languages, technology, leadership and gifted education traveled from all regions in Maine to participate in a Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) workshop. It took place at the beautiful Point Lookout in Northport. We were on the top of the mountain and it was simply a GORGEOUS day.

Trainers Willamarie Moore from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Michelle Grohe from the Gardner Museum in Boston did an outstanding job of presenting the information on Visual Thinking Strategies and consistently modeling the VTS techniques.

Philip Yenawine, co-author of VTS says: “kids start using their eyes to make sense of the world when they open them as infants. They look around them and they reason. Schooling very rarely takes any kind of advantage of that incredible strength that people have.” VTS is a program designed to encourage students to take advantage of those natural skills which develops their critical thinking skills and apply them to learning. These techniques are done while looking at artworks.

Three basic questions are used, the first one: What is going on in this picture? Students observe and build on each others observations with the facilitator encouraging kids to express their ideas. This impact students writing and some believe, reading. VTS is doing research that supports the impact the program is having on student achievement.

You can read and learn more at the VTS site. I invite teachers who participated in the session last week and the one offered two years ago to share comments here.

Thank you to Cathy Melio and Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport for collaborating with the Maine Dept. of Education to sponsor the workshop. If you liked to view more pictures from the VTS session please click here.

Falmouth High School… music educator Jim Horwich is teaching 22 students in two steel drum classes this year. You can read more about the students and the music in an article from “the Forecaster” edition, April 10, 2009, when you click here.

Hampden Academy… music educator Ben Aldridge said of Graham Chase, a student who composed a piece of music for the 2009 Young Competition, “he’s got a very good ear and understands how music works.” Graham is hard of hearing. An article appeared in the April 10, 2009 edition of the Bangor Daily News. You can read more about Graham and watch a video if you click here.

Winthrop Middle School… art educator, Lisa Gilman suggested this blog called “Looking Around”. Time’s critic Richard Lacayo reflects on art and architecture. Click here.

Skowhegan Middle School… art educator, Frank Chin is raising the level of awareness of art education in MSAD #54 by having a presence on the districts webpages. Check out the K-12 art page by clicking here. And look at the district home page here.

Please share links to articles, websites, and/or blogs with me so I can pass them on to other arts educators!

My Portaportal… has 100’s of links to websites. I just added some very interesting links to the “I Just Can’t Decide Where to Put These” category. When you get to the portaportal scroll down about 3/4 of the way and on the right side you will find the category. Click here.

Searching for a topic?

Recently I made a couple of changes to the meartsed blog. On the bottom right side the past blog posts are now archived by month. Below this section is a “search archives” bar where you can type in a word or a phrase and the system will bring up all the blog posts with that word or phrase . The search is not for all the “pages” just the blog “posts”. If this is not clear please contact me.

A Spring Filled with Adventures!

We arrived in DC after a whirl wind trip including 3 colleges in 3 days! If you are a parent you are well aware of the possibilities when it comes to what we do for our children! My son has 2 more colleges to visit before deciding on his choice for the fall.

Since we were returning him to his semester job at the National 4H Center in Chevy Chase, MD as a Program Assistant, we thought we’d spend a few hours in DC to catch a glimpse of the cherry blossoms and visit the National WWII monument that we hadn’t seen since its completion in 2004. Part of our sons responsibilities as program assistant is tour guide for students who are on class trips to the historic city.

When we arrived in DC it was sunny but the next day when we started our tour, it was raining. Nothing was going to stop us from a guided tour provided by our 18-year-old son. The cherry blossoms were beautiful and our walk around the tidal basin gave us many different views of the White House, the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. Our tour guide was quite knowledgeable, it was awesome! While visiting the WWII monument I couldn’t help but think about my Dad who fought in the many battles highlighted at the monument. I was in awe of the 24 bronze bas-reliefs created by sculptor Ray Kaskey that are located at the entrance. This one to the left depicts the landing at Normandy Beach.

You can see the other 23 and learn much more if you click here. To view more pictures from my day in DC please click here. And, if you’ve got a trip planned to DC in the next month, I know a really good licensed tour guide!

February and March Art Exhibit

Twenty four marvelous pieces of art created by 6, 7, and 8th graders from York Middle School were on display at the Maine Department of Education during February and March. A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to Vicky Morgan-Fickett, Sadie Shaffer, and Diane McHenry, the 3 art teachers who prepared and provided the student work. The Department staff and visitors were impressed with the variety and high quality of work. You can see the work in the gallery.