Another thought provoking massage form Suli Breaks.
The Arts have a very important role in student learning and success in school and life. Even though the arts make STEM possible, many educational gurus believe and support STEM to improve student learning while leaving the arts in the dust. Without the arts there is no steam to make STEM go, in my heart I believe it is time to turn STEM into STEAM. What do you think?
One of my schools was named an Ellbogen Meritorious School. For a school to have this distinction, it must have twenty percent of the teaching staff achieving National Board for Professional Teaching Certification or have eighty percent of the teaching staff and the principal summiting “scorable” entries. This is a great achievement for this small school and shows the commitment of the staff towards CES and its student base. The following is an article from the Wyoming Tribune Eagle about this achievement.
http://m.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/01/21/news/20local_01-21-13.txt
For those who are wondering, my entry was scorable and I am planning to continue the journey of become National Board certified.
I found this video on Tumblr and after I viewed the video I got to thinking about what education “is.” Is education about gaining knowledge to pass a test and get a degree or is education more about learning and growing to live out our dreams? As educators, do we give our students the tools and time to allow them to learn and grow beyond the test, to be human, a dreamer and an artist? I believe education is more than passing the testing and getting the degree, it is about learning and growing to live out our dreams as successful humans, dreamers and artists. What do you think?
There are so many Art and Arts Advocacy videos out there and here is one that expresses the philosophy of art education.
What is your Art Education philosophy?
I love to integrate music in my lessons and I have a great way to do it (Music Paintings). This project can be a collaboration project with the music teachers.
Here are a couple of examples of Music Paintings.
The past three years I have participated in the University of Wyoming Art Museum Transforming Learning Summer Teaching Institute. During this time, I and other school and community educators focus on learning through original artwork, artists, and other original resources for an entire week. Unlike many other educational
institutes or workshops we do not talk about teaching and how teach, we just
explore, learn and grow from each other. In turn, the ideas and resources we learn about will help us to inspire creativity in our students in the coming year. That’s all we really want as art educators to inspire creativity in our students. Below are some of the original art works that I created during the institute that has inspired so many ideas and lessons for my student including the Blueprints on Fabric.
Art Education Advocacy “What can Art teach?”