Report Examines School Strategies for Devoting Extra Time for Arts

by Erik Robelen on June 11, 2013 9:13 AM
EDUCATION WEEK * Curriculum Matters

A new Wallace Foundation Report takes a close look at five public schools it sees as doing exemplary work to make the arts a high priority as part of a redesigned and expanded school day.

So, what does this look like in practice?

The arts are not considered "extras" in these schools, according to the report, issued last week. Students get at least one hour daily of arts-specific instruction (and in two of them, it's often closer to three hours). Teachers routinely seek opportunities to integrate the arts across core disciplines. The schools hire arts specialists who are both talented artists and educators. They connect with museums and other cultural institutions. Students have access to a menu of different arts opportunities, from visual and performing arts to multimedia and design projects. These are just a few examples of what the researchers learned in studying these schools in depth.

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STEAM
Changing Elementary Classrooms

STEAM
(Science Technology Engineering
Arts Mathematics) is a working solution to the nations need to continue to be a global
competitor.

The curriculum’s of elementary schools are changing to meet the
needs of integrating cross-curricular educational initiatives that
involve students performing critical thinking and higher order
thinking skills.

Student’s must learn the skills of problem solving, understand
the importance of innovation with the use of technology, have
the ability to work together collaboratively and even independently
to create, design, develop and integrate hands on learning
that is project based. Minority students need to realize that in order
to participate in future discoveries and exploration of new windows
of opportunity for learning and growth, minority students must be
a part of a STEAM educational curriculum.

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW

What is STE(A)M?


Museums Open Doors to Informal Math Learning
by Caralee J. Adams
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
New York

Math Fever: From left, Luna Rodriguez, Sabrina Vulpio, and Justin Burgher,
7th graders at PS 232, dance on the light-activated Math Square at the 

Museum of Mathematics in New York. MoMath and other museums are 

trying to make the subject enjoyable.

—Emile Wamsteker for Education Week 

Math has a bit of an image problem. It's often seen as hard, abstract—even pointless.

The creators of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City are all about turning that image around and convincing young people that mathematics is cool.

"Changing perceptions is our goal," said Cindy Lawrence, the co-executive director of MoMath, as it's quickly become known. "From the minute people walk in the door, we try to highlight the creative side of math: that it's colorful, it's beautiful, it's exploratory, fun and engaging. None of these are words people

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/beyond_schools/

typically associate with math."


Such efforts are not just happening at MoMath, which opened in Manhattan on the mathematically hip date of 12/12/12.

Although it's the only museum entirely devoted to the subject in North America, curators of math exhibits at science centers across the country are also inviting the public in to experience math in a hands-on, fun way.
They want people to see that it's about thinking and discovery, rather than rote memorization. And far from irrelevant, math is everywhere—from highway design to musical composition to roller coaster construction.

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Why you should listen to this clip from Sir Kenneth Robinson:

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educationa

l system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His 2009 book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, is a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 21 languages. A 10th anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, was published in 2011. His latest book, Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life, will be published by Viking in May 2013.

"Ken's vision and expertise is sought by public and commercial organizations throughout the world."
BBC Radio 4

Click READ MORE to VIEW Ken's talk "School's Kill Creativity"

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Eagan's Glacier Hills Elementary School's new tech tools mix art, science
by Christopher Magan
TWIN CITY PRESS
cmagan@pioneerpress.com



Glacier Hills Elementary School is taking hands-on learning to the next level.

In September, the Eagan science magnet school will open a new laboratory that combines the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. The "STEAM room" will allow students to create objects using new tools, such as a 3-D printer and laser etcher, when exploring scientific concepts.

Fifth-graders show the cardboard automata motion boxes they made at Glacier Hills Elementary School in Eagan last month. The school has new equipment, a 3-D printer and a laser etcher that aid its education focus of STEAM -- science, technology, engineering, art and math. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

"We already do a good job with hands-on learning," said Principal Jeff Holten. "We teach in a demonstrational way, and this is the next step."

The new tools amazed fifth-graders Zach Wollak and Jane Vasterling. They used the etcher to carve a Vikings logo and built small trinkets with the 3-D printer.

Why music makes our brain sing

by ROBERT J. ZATORRE and VALORIE N. SALIMPOOR
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 7, 2013

MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. And yet humans have always prized music — or well beyond prized, loved it.

Baptiste Alchourroun

In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. But even in Paleolithic times, people invested significant time and effort to create music, as the discovery of flutes carved from animal bones would suggest.

So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value?

The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. Of course, that still leaves the question of why. But for that, neuroscience is starting to provide some answers.

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ONE PARENT'S QUESTION: STEM is good, but where's the art? A question of STEM vs STEAM and Why It's Taking So Long for the Obvious to be Seen.

from a STE(A)M parent: "I recommend watching the video listed below:



This is the first year of a charter school for my daughter whose focus is on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). As a parent I have never sought to "overload" my kid with too much information (I admit I have talked about Quantum Loading/Fixing and variations of String Theory - thanks TED and Michio Kaku!), but she wants to be a scientist and has for 4 of the past 9 years of her life. STEM has been challenging and rewarding to her and we have worked with her everyday to help her learn, but there has been something critical missing from STEM since we started: the "A" for Art.

Schools Adding Time to Teach the Arts

by Nora Fleming EDUCATION WEEK
June 5, 2013 12:15 PM

The arts—said to be neglected by schools since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 pressured them to focus on literacy and mathematics instruction—may no longer be side-swiped for other disciplines.

Some expanded learning time schools are now using their longer school days not just for additional instruction in math, reading, and the like, but for arts education (dance, drawing, theater, and music), according to a new report released by the Boston-based National Center on Time & Learning.

The report, which received support from the Wallace Foundation, profiles five schools, which serve mostly low-income students, that have prioritized arts education as a key component of their students' education when they redesigned their school day. In addition to added time for the arts, appropriate staffing and resources have been dedicated accordingly, the report says, as the schools see the arts as valuable to improving student engagement in school in addition to achievement in other subjects. (The Wallace Foundation also underwrites coverage of arts education and expanded learning time in Education Week.)

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"Tom-Foolery" or "Ingenious Creativity and Innovation"--You Be the Judge...

Who says engineering and science can't be creative, innovative and fun?  It would be difficult to argue that this inventor wasn't tapping into a vast skills set of engineering, science, creativity and innovation.

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For Today's Students, Creativity Matters

How the Allegheny Valley School District moved from STEM to STEAM

At the beginning, people thought she was nuts. Sue Mellon, the Gifted support coordinator for Springdale Junior and Senior High/Colfax School in the Allegheny Valley School District, thought 7th and 8th graders could develop a deeper understanding of poetry by playing around with robotics.

“Originally, people looked at me like I was crazy,” Mellon said. Now, two years later, Robotics Poetry is a staple of language arts classes at Springdale. A new grant has students preparing to be peer mentors.

Poetry isn’t always easy for students. But with hands-on engagement, they gain new understanding. Take Robert Frost’s “Pasture.” Instead of just reading and discussing the work in a typical classroom setting, students made 21st-century dioramas with robotic tool kits containing sensors, motors, LEDs, and a controller. One student made a blue plastic wrap lake in an old cardboard photocopy-paper box that vibrated, thanks to the motor, and, lit up, thanks to the LED. When the student said the word “water”—students record themselves reading the poems aloud in the audio-editing program Audacity—the LED turned the plastic wrap a deeper shade of blue. When he got to the bit about the “tottering” calf, the motor made the toy calf vibrate.

“A lot of kids aren’t crazy about poetry,” Mellon said. “But we have to help them engage with it. After spending two weeks analyzing the poem and creating visual imagery and symbolism for their dioramas, they really understand the work and get quite passionate.”

Stories like Mellon’s can be found all around the Allegheny School District these days as the area, already renowned for its groundbreaking work in STEM, takes on STEAM.

New data shows school “reformers” are full of it

Poor schools underperform largely because of economic forces, not because teachers have it too easy

BY DAVID SIROTA on SALON.COM

In the great American debate over education, the education and technology corporations, bankrolled politicians and activist-profiteers who collectively comprise the so-called “reform” movement base their arguments on one central premise: that America should expect public schools to produce world-class academic achievement regardless of the negative forces bearing down on a school’s particular students. In recent days, though, the faults in that premise are being exposed by unavoidable reality.

What should the caption for this photo really be?  As they say in the south,
"God bless her..."  Tell us on http://www.facebook.com/neafineartscaucus 

Before getting to the big news, let’s review the dominant fairy tale: As embodied by New York City’s major education announcement this weekend, the “reform” fantasy pretends that a lack of teacher “accountability” is the major education problem and somehow wholly writes family economics out of the story (amazingly, this fantasy persists even in a place like the Big Apple where economic inequality is particularly crushing). That key — and deliberate — omission serves myriad political interests.

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The 21st century skill students most lack

By Valerie Strauss, THE WASHINGTON POST Published: May 13, 2013 at 12:30 pm

When people talk about 21st century skills, more often than not they are talking about things like creativity, the ability to work in a group and solve problems. But there’s another skill that cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham writes about here that is just as important. Willingham is a professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His latest book is “When Can You Trust The Experts?"How to tell good science from bad in education.” This appeared on his Science and Education blog.

by Daniel Willingham

Most teachers think that students today have a problem paying attention. They seem impatient, easily bored.

I’ve argued that I think it’s unlikely that they are incapable of paying attention, but rather that they are quick to deem things not worth the effort.

We might wonder if patience would not come easier to a student who had had the experience of sustaining attention in the face of boredom, and then later finding that patience was rewarded. Arguably, digital immigrants were more likely to have learned this lesson. There were fewer sources of distraction and entertainment, and so we were a bit more likely to hang in there with something a little dull.

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THE ARTS ARE NOT A LUXURY

John M. EgerVan Deerlin, May 19, 2013 THE HUFFINGTON POST
Endowed Chair of Communications and Public Policy and Director of the Creative Economy Initiative, San Diego State UniversityIt's really time to stop tiptoeing around the vital role of the arts in education.

Maybe it's also time for the Congress to put the A into STEM.

Major provisions of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of Congressional Research Service in a report issued last month, "the 113th Congress will have the opportunity to reconsider this act and its policy contributions. Those contributions include, among other things, funding authorizations for certain federal physical sciences and engineering research programs, as well as selected STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education programs."
2010--also known as the STEM act--are set to expire this year. At this time, according to the

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EYP's design of the Mars Center for Science and Technology at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass addresses Wheaton College's desire to connect landscapes, disciplines, and programs to reinforce their campus culture and curriculum which values sustainability and environmental responsibility. The 73,000 gsf addition to and 2
2,000 gsf renovation of the interdisciplinary science center unites Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Psychology; connects the campus core with the sports precinct and the campus edge; and provides welcoming "soft spaces" for informal study and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Here we see architects and engineers honor STE(A)M by building a facility that promotes expression, integration and more.

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ARE YOU ON BOARD AS THESE STE(A)M STUDENTS SHOW US WHAT STE(A)M means to them and how it helps the STE(A)M THROUGH THEIR EDUCATION.

As we hope you know by now, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, and Mathematics, or just simply implementing the creative power of the arts through STEM education.
At TAG Magnet, these kids love interdisciplinary subjects.

STEAM through Education is a Local Ideas Festival in Dallas, TX, sponsored by the Bezos Family Foundation. We advocate that by combining the arts and STEM, we encourage creativity, innovation, and design, things that our society desperately needs.

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Looks like Kickstarter can add “reimagined” carnivals with “robots, fire, and lasers” to the list things that its users have crowdfunded.

Earlier today, an event called the STEAM Carnival, put together by a company called Two Bit Circus, reached its $100,000 Kickstarter goal. The initials are a twist on STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math — the A adds Art to the equation.

Here’s how the Kickstarter page outlines the vision:

CFT Resolution to Promote Equity for Dance and Theatre Arts Educators Adopted at CFT Convention

2013 California Federation of Teachers (CFT) Convention

Resolution 11--Promote Equity for Dance and Theatre as Arts Education and Support Comprehensive Visual and Performing Arts Education

Submitted by United Teachers Los Angeles, AFT 1021.

The CFT Professional Issues EC/K-12 Committee recommended concurrence with this Resolution and was adopted unanimously by the body of elected delegates to the 2013 CFT Convention.

Whereas, all California students deserve equal access to a balanced, comprehensive, high-quality
education including a robust offering of curriculum, instruction, and courses in the Visual and Performing
Arts (VAPA): Dance, Music, Theatre, and the Visual Arts; and

Whereas, access to and participation in a Visual and Performing Arts Education is an integral part of
every students’ intellectual, physical, social, emotional, creative, cultural, and civic development; and

National Core Standards for the Arts on the Horizon

A newly formed partnership of organizations and states will lead the development of new core arts standards for the United States.

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) plans to complete its work and release new, national voluntary arts education standards in early 2014. The standards will describe what students should know and be able to do as a result of a quality curricular arts education program.

The current National Standards for Arts Education have been adopted or adapted by forty-nine state departments of education, and have become the benchmark document by which K-12 arts learning is measured. Curriculum designers, teacher training programs, funders, and federal and state policy makers have relied on the original 1994 national arts standards and, more recently, the 2005 Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts to help guide their decision-making.

NEA Fine Arts Caucus Agenda Sunday, June 2, 2013,

NEA Fine Arts Caucus Agenda

Sunday, June 2, 2013,

7:30 PM CST * 5:30 PST * 8:30 EST

I. Roll Call of Executive Board Members

• OFFICERS--Tom McLaughlin (IA), Chair; Jessica Fitzwater (MD), Vice-Chair; Rich Nicklay (IA), Secretary; Oscar Forsman (IL), Treasurer.
   
•  EXECUTIVE BOARD--Pam Gibberman (CA), Music; Sue Lemmo (PA), Visual Arts; Carlos Meikel (CO), Visual Art; Ginger Fox (CA), Dance; Carol Woodman (WA), Drama; Michael Gary (TX), Dance; Dawn Moretz (NC), Drama.
  

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NASA Langley Partners With Va. STEAM Academy To Promote Education

PR Newswire – Tue, May 28, 2013

HAMPTON, Va., May 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

NASA Langley and the Virginia Science Technology Engineering and Applied Mathematics (STEAM) Academy have signed a partnership agreement to enhance STEAM teaching and learning in Virginia through research mentorships and sabbatical opportunities.

NASA Langley plans to dedicate 10 mentors to Virginia STEAM Academy students and faculty. Mentors

will provide face-to-face and online research and shadowing opportunities for students and faculty. In addition, NASA Langley will offer guidance on how to create hands-on learning experiences. Select Virginia STEAM Academy students will serve as ambassadors for NASA Langley's research and education programs.

If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance

 

 

Arne Duncan: Education is the best investment we can make

Cathy Finkler
2:42 PM on 05/29/2013

During an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell at Tuesday’s Education Nation Summit, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reaffirmed his belief that “education is the best investment we can make.”
“I think if you think education is expensive, try ignorance,” Duncan said. “I never say we should invest in the status quo, we have to invest in a vision of reform. But when you see art and dance and drama being eliminated…when those opportunities don’t exist—we’re cutting off our nose to spite the face.”

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Science and technology education picks up steam

by David Wheeler for The Enterprise
Posted May 27, 2013 @ 09:59 PM

One of the hottest topics in education today is STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. Everywhere I look, there are grants, professional development opportunities and symposiums designed to help schools teach more math and science. And plenty of folks are (correctly) looking to vocational schools to help encourage these much-needed skill sets.

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Kerry Washington joins FLOTUS to showcase arts school

Maria Puente, USA TODAY 3:23 p.m. EDT May 24, 2013

Kerry Washington and Michelle Obama take the stage at an improving school in the nation's capital where the focus is on the arts.

Scandal star Kerry Washington joined first lady Michelle Obama at a Washington, D.C. school to showcase how a focus on the arts can dramatically reform under-performing schools.

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During tough economic times, arts and music programs are often some of the first programs cut in schools. But at Wolf Trap's Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts , investing in arts education has been a priority for the past 31 years.

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds who actively participated in the arts tended to score better in science and writing, and were more likely to aspire to college.

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Black-Eyed Peas lead singer Will.I.Am, a passionate STE(A)M Advocate, will probably be heard right before we gavel in to this year's RA.  LET'S GET  IT STARTED will have delegates on their feet, clapping, beach balls will be spinning in the air and the NEA FAC will be preparing to ask for your vote on out STE(A)M Initiative.  Do me a favor?  Play LET'S GET IT STARTED and read this article on the STE(A)M Initiative because it's time and with your vote we can all say, "Let's Get It Started."

STEM to STEAM: Art Is Key to Building a Strong Economy
Jon Kamen and John Maeda
The Huffington Post
Nov 13, 2012

We recently had the pleasure of collaborating in Richard Saul Wurman's new improvisational conference WWW, which came to life for the first, and perhaps only, time in September. One of many powerful moments of conversation was when Will.i.am took the stage to talk about the importance of getting children involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math -- the STEM subjects. The lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas has become an impassioned spokesperson for how STEM will power the economy and lift neighborhoods from poverty, and for how we need to do more to get kids to pursue careers in the STEM fields.