me arts ed

Popping in at Haystack

Due to a family commitment I wasn’t able to attend the Maine Art Educators conference this weekend at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts but I was able to visit on Friday for a few hours. There is nothing like a good Haystack lunch and seeing old friends. I tried to arrive early enough so I could see veteran teachers and meet teachers that I didn’t know. It was fun to see old friends Chris, Shalimar, Beth, Kathy, Sandy, Frank, Diane, Jeff, Russell, Manon, Leone, Natasha, Bob, Lisa, Beth, Eva, Steph, Charlie and so many, many others. I was glad to have a chance to chat.

I did hear many war stories of what is happening in districts across the state. We are at a difficult time due to the economy and more then ever I am committed to the importance of being pro-active about promoting arts education! But, it is time to think differently. We can no longer do “business as usual” as we look closely at our practice. We must continue to learn, find a place at the table, and communicate. The connection with arts education and to 21st century skills is clear for me and may be for you, but I am learning it is not evident to other educators. SOOOOOOO… what to do about that? Here are some suggestions:

• Visit the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website and look specifically at the 21st Century Arts Map. It was designed especially for us!
• Read “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink, Tony Wagner’s Book “The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need – and What We Can Do About It”.
• Watch Sir Kenneth Robinson’s YouTube “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and his latest TED talk “Bring on the Learning Revolution”.
• Use the Maine data from the census work that many of you contributed to that is on the Department webpage or at Maine Alliance for Arts Education webpage. You can download the executive summary or the 287 page complete report.
• Read the blog posts on the statewide arts education assessment work we are initiating. One written by Rob Westerberg and one by Catherine Ring.
• Read the blog posts on the Open Educational Resources OER’s, the arts teachers identifying resources and the arts teachers developing OER units.
• Read about the work on the Imagination Intensive Communities (IIC) and consider nominating your community for the award this year. There are several posts on the IIC work, just put the name of the community in the search archives window on the bottom right hand side of the front page of the blog.
• Connect with your colleagues to collaborate! Linking arms with other educators will strengthen arts education.

What suggestions do you have? Please add them in the comments below.

It would be great to hear from visual art teachers who attended Haystack, send comments or write a blog post and send it to me, be sure and include pictures.