March 2010
The Arts Ignite Children's Creativity, Innovation, and Imagination
March 2010 - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | "As a grandmother of 14 and an artist, Zarah Blair says she feels passionate about instilling a love for art in children.
Blair, of Sarver, feels so strongly about this that she has traveled to where some of her grandchildren live -- including Florida and Mexico -- to teach art classes, because their schools have minimal to no art-education programs. Blair, who does a lot of collage-making and drawing, mostly teaches the kids how to make prints with paints, plates and rolling pins. Blair also enjoys doing art projects with her five local grandchildren, Kotoko Blair, and her cousins Sam, Sally, Josh and Will Lovener, all of whom live in O'Hara.
"Art is the only, only place where kids are called upon to create from within themselves in a spectacular way," says Blair, 72. "With some children, it might be the only success they have in school. ... They splash around and have a great time creating."
Children get plenty of exposure to pop-culture arts for their age range: "Dora the Explorer," "Hannah Montana," hip-hop and pop music, movies, and the like. Yet, experts say that children also need to learn about and appreciate fine arts, like visual art at museums, theater, symphony, and more. Kids also need an outlet for their own creativity with opportunities to make art, like arts and crafts, painting and drawing, experts say.
Learning about and experiencing the arts gives kids a sense of culture and sophistication, and respect for the human spirit of creativity, says Sarah Tambucci. She is the director of the Arts Education Collaborative in Downtown, an advocacy organization that promotes art in the region.
"Everything that is an arts experience for a child is a way of opening a door to a broader world," she says. "They need fine arts as well as pop-culture art."
The arts teach children creativity, innovation and imagination, Tambucci says.
"Arts also teach children that problems can have more than one solution ... and questions can have more than one answer," she says. "The arts help our children ... celebrate multiple perspectives. There are many different ways of seeing the world and interpreting the world." "
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Obama Calls for Sweeping Overhaul in Education Law
March 2010 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | "The Obama administration on Saturday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.
By announcing that he would send his education blueprint to Congress on Monday, President Obama returned to a campaign promise to repair the sprawling federal law, which affects each of the nation's nearly 100,000 public schools. His plan strikes a careful balance, retaining some key features of the Bush-era law, including its requirement for annual reading and math tests, while proposing far-reaching changes.
The administration would replace the law's pass-fail school grading system with one that would measure individual students' academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators like pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate. And while the proposal calls for more vigorous interventions in failing schools, it would also reward top performers and lessen federal interference in tens of thousands of reasonably well-run schools in the middle.
In addition, President Obama would replace the law's requirement that every American child reach proficiency in reading and math, which administration officials have called utopian, with a new national target that could prove equally elusive: that all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career."
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Future Leaders Need Art-Infused Education
March 2010 - San Diego Business Journal | "As Harvey White and Pete Garcia, both former executives on the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. board of trustees, have argued, “We need STEAM, not just STEM” to ensure our leadership in the 21st century. We need to put art back into our curricula.
White, who is co-founder of both Qualcomm Inc. and Leap Wireless International Inc., and Garcia, from University Engineering, know something about the work force of the future. White, who actually coined the phrase STEAM — or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math — in a talk to the EDC, is especially passionate: “We simply cannot compete in the new economy unless we do something now about creativity and innovation.”
More than two years ago, then-President Bush signed into law a bill called the America Competes Act, also known as the STEM initiative for Science Technology Engineering and Math. President Obama has also called for a renewed STEM focus, and centers and institutes for STEM are popping up across the nation.
The Bush administration bill authorized $151 million to help students earn a bachelor’s degree, math and science teachers to get teaching credentials, and provide additional money to help align kindergarten through grade 12 math and science curricula to better prepare students for college.
In a commentary in The Wall Street Journal, Chester E. Finn Jr. and Diane Ravitch, both assistant secretaries of education in the first Bush administration, complained loudly: “This is a mistake that will ill serve our children while misconstruing the true nature of American competitiveness and the challenges we face in the 21st century.”
In truth, we need a huge infusion of capital and a change in attitude about art and music, math and science. We need to define a well-rounded education and to make the case for its importance in a global innovation economy."
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Pennsylvania Selected as One of 16 Finalists in Race for the Top Grant Competition
March 2010 - EPLC Education Notebook |
Finalists will present their RTTT proposals to a U.S. Department of Education panel in mid-March. During this stage of the competition, finalists must demonstrate that “the state has the understanding, knowledge, capacity, and the will to truly deliver on what is proposed.” Click here for more information on how the finalists were chosen and how the winners will be selected.
Music Teacher Describes Technology Used in Classroom
February 2010 - Eastern Arizona Courier | "Most people probably don't think computers and technology would be utilized in a music or band class. But for students who attend the Pima School District, implementing technology in every class has become second nature.
Michael Bradley, band director/music teacher for the Pima Jr. High and High School, gave a presentation to the Pima School Board on Feb. 10 and demonstrated how technology is utilized by students in his music classes.
Pima has become an Apple Computers-equipped school with numerous iMac desktop computers and an Apple laptop for every teacher. The computers come with a plethora of free software already built into the system. Teachers take advantage of the software and utilize it to help with their curriculum, including for presentations or a podcast. In the music classes and elsewhere, Bradley incorporates Apple's Garage Band software to help instruct students on musical composition.
He told the School Board that with technology advancing rapidly in the world, not giving students training on it would be detrimental."
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