me arts ed

We couldn’t ask for a nicer day!

For those of you who don’t know I am Greek. My father was born in Greece and my mother is first generation, born in America of Greek decent as well.

Easter is the most special holiday of the year for the Greeks. We certainly have the religious traditions we continue recognizing but we also have the family traditions which include food.

We had a wonderful day today with our traditional foods which included a leg of lamb on the grill, roasted potatoes, carrots, spanakopita, salad and galatoboudiko (a dessert similar to custard).

And of course the red eggs. We dye them a bright red color and than we play a sort of like game where we crack them, hitting pointy end to pointy end and rounded to rounded until there is one person left with an unbroken egg. That person will have good luck during the next year. We say Kristos Anesti (Christ has risen) and Alithos Anesti (he has truly risen) while cracking eggs.

And the celebration of Spring abounds. We counted our good fortune as we sat on the deck and soaked in the sunshine and warm weather. Not one of our guests could remember an April 3rd that was so beautiful!

Visual art teachers invited to participate – from Jessica Andresen

My name is Jessica Andresen and I am an art teacher at Orono High School and currently a graduate student at the University of Maine in the Art Education program. For my thesis project I am collecting data about the role that censorship plays in K-12 public schools in Maine.

The benefits of this research are that data will be collected on the types of censorship that occur in public art classrooms in the state of Maine, and it will help educators self-reflect on censorship in their own professional lives, and learn from other educators who have had censorship issues in their schools. From these data, the nature of censorship in Maine art classrooms, and how censorship is represented in the public school setting can be analyzed. Possible ways of responding to a material challenge can be drawn. It is also important for post-secondary schools that are preparing art educators because it is important to make sure students are ready to address how censorship occurs and how to be ready when it does.

I would greatly appreciate it if K-12 art educators would take the time, approximately 20 minutes, to fill out a survey on censorship. Please email jessica.andresen@umit.maine.edu and I will send you the survey.

It will only take a moment and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. After the survey is completed, you may be contacted to participate in an interview. Please note that no real names will be associated with the data collected, and pseudonyms will be provided for all who choose to participate. Once participants have returned the survey, the survey will be saved as a word document on the computer with a pseudonym attached and the email will be deleted. The pseudonym will only be linked to the real name by a key that will only be accessible to the PI and graduate advisor, Dr. Laurie E. Hicks. All interviews will be recorded and the interviews will be linked to the pseudonym given. Recordings will be transferred to the PI’s computer as an MP3 file as well as kept on tape in the PI’s home office. These data will be kept on the PI’s computer in her home office and will kept by the PI until research has been completed, no later than May, 2011. At this time all tapes will be destroyed.