me arts ed

Poland music teacher visits with Senator Olympia Snowe

Lee Libby had taught at Poland Community School for 23 years and was laid off this spring when the school district had to cut $1 million from their budget. She me with Senator Snowe to urge her to vote for federal legislation that would give money to the states to help schools retain teachers.

You can read the entire article from the Sun Journal by clicking here.

John Holdridge new associate!

The Maine Arts Commission today announced the appointment of John Holdridge as Arts in Education associate. John will oversee the agency’s arts in education programs while seeking to bring the arts closer to the center of the ongoing discussions about education in Maine.

“The Maine Arts Commission is delighted to welcome John Holdridge to our team,” said agency director Donna McNeil. “John brings a deep and full knowledge of the field, particularly in the realms of teacher training. He is enthusiastic and genial, and we will leverage John’s experience to amplify the educational aspects of all our endeavors.”

John has been involved in the field of arts and education for the past fifteen years. After five seasons as a professional actor with Perishable Theatre’s Shows for Young Audiences in Providence, RI, John became the Resident Teaching Artist with the ArtsLiteracy Project in the Education Department at Brown University.

While at the Artsliteracy Project John worked as a teaching artist partner in K-12 classrooms of all levels and content areas, mentored teacher and artist partnerships learning to integrate their fields as a way to deepen and demonstrate student comprehension, and created and facilitated professional development opportunities for several districts in Rhode Island, Boston, MA, St. Paul, MN, Inhumas, Brazil and the summer lab school at Brown University. In addition to these duties John taught in the teacher education program at Brown, served as the curriculum specialist for the NEA sponsored teacher training institute, and presented at local and national conferences including the annual meeting of the Arts Education Partnership at Lincoln Center.

“I am hoping that in my position I will be able to contribute to the education conversations that are taking place here in Maine and nationally,” said Holdridge. “There is currently a huge emphasis being placed on creativity, imagination, and innovation in our learning environments. I want to make sure that teaching and learning in and through the arts remain at the center of that conversation. I’d like to solidify the role of the teaching artist in and around schools, support teachers and students as artists, develop effective models for arts integration and help Maine become a regional and national leader in the field.

“I am excited that the past three years have brought about a change in leadership at the Maine Arts Commission as change often provides new opportunities for growth,” Holdridge explained. “I know that the agency director wants Maine to be a leader in the field and I expect that means that all of us at the associate level will be encouraged to be leaders within our own areas of expertise.”

Since moving to Peaks Island in 2007, John has been working as an independent education consultant leading professional development workshops for teachers and creative writing and theatre residencies for students while completing his MS Ed degree at the University of Southern Maine. While at USM he developed and taught Creative Literacy: Building Literacy through the Arts, a graduate level course for professional teachers.

John Holdridge can be contacted at the Maine Arts Commission through e-mail, john.holdridge@maine.gov, or via the phone at 207/287-2790.

The Creativity Crisis by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

I received a handful of emails and phone messages about last weeks edition of Newsweek magazine called The Creativity Crisis. I found the article fascinating due to the research that is available in the US from a series of tasks that were designed by E. Paul Torrance to measure creativity. Interestingly enough, since 1990 the scores have declined significantly. “The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.”

You can read this entire article by clicking here. Along with the article at the link you can listen to an interview with the authors of the article. It is VERY interesting. I suggest you share this link with friends and colleagues.

During July and August!

THANK YOU  to Sue Moccia for the student work she has prepared for the summer art exhibit from Paris Elementary School at the Maine Department of Education (MDOE). Since it is summertime perhaps you will be visiting the city. You are invited to view the artwork during business hours. Please check and see if I am in so I can come talk with old friends and make new ones.

For those of you who may not know the Department is located on the 5th floor of the Cross Building which is right next to the State House in Augusta. You can get directions at this link to the MDOE.

This is what the Director of ESL/Bilingual Programs Nancy Mullins communicated:

“For four years I have been privileged to view the art displays here at the Department of Education.  We have actually started meetings by discussing how impressed we are with the art – “did you see this one – what about that one – I can’t believe a kindergarten student could do that…” we all smile while talking about the art.  I linger longer – stress dissipates as I continue to enjoy the art – I am so impressed with each and every piece.  Thank you.”

The artwork will remain until the end of August.

Olivia, Grade 2

Preview the screen saver photos

Those of you who are middle school teachers and have MLTI laptops probably saw the screen saver pictures from this year over and over. When your laptops are reimaged you will have new screen saver pictures. You can see them by clicking here and look at them for a longer period of time (if you’d like) then your screen saver allows.

"Colour Me Beautiful" by Samantha Hall, grade 12, Yarmouth High School, Melissa Noack, art teacher

Thank you teachers and students!

The Department of Education art exhibit for May and June was from the schools of MSAD 55. Thank you to the students for their work which you can view by clicking here.

Thank you to the following teachers:

• Cathy Adelman – South Hiram Elementary School, Baldwin Consolidated School, Cornish Elementary School, and Fred Morrill Elementary School
• Danette Kerrigan – Sacopee Valley Middle School

Camden, grade 4, Cornish Elementary School, art teacher Cathy Adelman

Opportunities for teachers and students

Turtle from exhibit

The Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the University of Southern Maine, Gorham campus, Carolyn Eyler, announced the free educational opportunities for teachers and students. You can learn about Wabanaki birchbark and contemporary Native American issues in their fall exhibit entitled “Turtle/Television Island”. The show has the potential for curriculum connections in Art, Language Arts, and Social Studies.

The experience or field work will introduce or reinforce an understanding of historical and contemporary lifestyles of the four Native Nations of Maine. Educators can attend programming that has been designed for after school hours to provide opportunities to expand knowledge of Wabanaki and CEU’s are available.

The exhibit will have strong ties to stories by Penobscot author, Ssipsis, and the Native-crafted birch bark wigwam should be a hit with students. Literacy, history, and cultural issues, as well as art, are all addressed in this exhibit, which should help schools fulfill elements of the legislated requirement of Wabanaki Studies, formerly LD-291, requiring the teaching of Wabanaki history and culture in all Maine school systems, K-12.

Teachers can make arrangements to have the gallery outside of public hours to accommodate schedules and provide guided tours if requested in advance. In early August, resources will be provided on the exhibit, including several links to short videos. You can find the resources on the USM website by clicking here.

For more information about Wabanaki please go to the MDOE website by clicking here. You an also contact Joseph E. Charnley at charnj@portlandschools.org. Joseph serves as the Wabanaki Studies co-Facilitator, Portland School District, Native Studies Committee Facilitator. Wabanaki Connections information can be found by clicking here.

For more information after August 2nd, please contact Carolyn Eyler at 780-5008, or email Carolyn @ ceyler@maine.edu.

Injecting show business into teaching

This article written by Patty Fisher for the MercuryNews.com called “Fisher: Teachers take center stage” tells about what learning in the arts does for classroom teachers.

“Ten California teachers are learning to use stage techniques to interest students in academic subjects. A local theater company has provided the training for Palo Alto Unified School District teachers for four years. “Say you are doing a science unit on energy,” said Nancy Coffey, head of the program. “If the children get up and turn their bodies into thunder and lightning, they’ll remember it a lot better than if they sat and did a worksheet on thunder and lightning.

Redford spoke at the 2010 Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit

Robert Redford gave the opening remarks recently at the 2010 Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit. In his presentation he shared his story about a teacher who saved his life by bringing him “an easel to use in class as a solution to his continuous doodling and distraction”.

You can read about it by clicking here for the blog.

Thank you to friend and colleague Barbara Greenstone who sent me the link to the blog.

Thank you teachers and students!

The Department of Education art exhibit for March and April was from Winthrop School students, K-12. Thank you to the students for the art work which you can view by clicking here.

Thank you to the following teachers:

• Mary Dyer – Winthrop High School
• Lisa Gilman – Winthrop Middle School
• Pam Turcotte – Winthrop Grade School

It was great having the Winthrop exhibit at the Department since it is so close to Augusta there were many visitors including students, parents and grandparents!

Sara Devoy, grade 8, Winthrop Middle School, art teacher Lisa Gilman