Arne Duncan on the arts - a critical component of a complete education

"I am greatly honored that the Department is hosting the National PTA's student art exhibit. The students in this show, like many, many others around the country and the world, represent the talent and thoughtful, artistic work that can result from the support of their schools, teachers, and families. The arts are a critical component of a complete education, providing an opportunity to see and think in new ways and to innovate, as this exhibit proves. The theme of this year's exhibit--'I Can Make a Difference by ...', is an inspiration to all of us to engage, as these students have done, in the kind of thinking and efforts that President Obama has asked us to do as citizens of this great nation."

-- Arne Duncan, on occasion of the opening of the National PTA's "Reflections" art exhibit at the Department of Education, Feb. 10, 2009.

Creativity Food and Science - Ferran Adria

He's been called the Salvador Dali of the kitchen and graced the covers of The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine and Time. He was brought in by Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences yet considers himself an artist. Read this case study on his creative process published by the ESADE School of Business:

http://www.elbulli.com/esade/Caso_Ferran_Adria_and_elBulli-ESADE_en.pdf

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music.

Click here to read more.

Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education

http://www.creative.wisconsin.gov/

Rationale Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor, Barbara Lawton, and State Superintendent of Schools, Elizabeth Burmaster, established the Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education to address the essential role arts education and the development of all students' creative capacities plays in the lives of students, in defining their future, the quality of life in Wisconsin communities and our state's economy.

In this 21st century global economy, Wisconsin's competitive edge will be the talent it develops for innovation and entrepreneurship. In a fast-changing world where we are bombarded with more information than can be humanly processed, knowledge represents what can be known and creativity is the capacity to manage the unknown.

In this context, the following equation must drive smart allocation of resources in education: Knowledge + Creativity = Competitive Edge.

Creativity drives innovations in science, business, technology and even service industries; entrepreneurs are problem-solvers, innovators by definition, visionaries when at their best.

Developing the arts and creativity in education programs is both a deliberate workforce development strategy and one that will stimulate innovation/creativity and enable entrepreneurship. The new Wisconsin brand platform developed by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism points to our state's historic identity as fostering a culture of original thinkers across economic sectors. Wisconsin's future prosperity depends on our success in establishing our leadership in innovation and ideas to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education is charged to:
- Examine the quality and amount of arts education and creativity development that students currently receive in public schools pre-K through 12, and gauge the impact of relevant state level policies and local practices on the scope and access statewide to quality arts education opportunities.
- Create and assess an inventory of arts education programs offered both during and after school by the nonprofit arts organizations.
- Develop an inventory of model projects and curriculum developing creative capacities in all disciplines that are already being used in the classroom to disseminate broadly.
- Develop a "GPS" to guide educators, policymakers, parents and communities in developing strong programs through DPI, state policies and collaborative practices to ensure that every Wisconsin child has the opportunity to develop their competitive edge.
-Identify those state and local agencies, organizations and businesses that can collaborate with schools, and will provide community leadership and additional resources to support arts education.

The work of the Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education will encompass, but is not limited to, issues and related policies such as:
- State-supported programs for arts education and creativity.
- The incidence of use of the arts and its impact on learning in other disciplines.
- School/community arts education partnerships.
- Expanding the reach of arts and creativity in education to under-served populations.
- Diversity in arts education programs, including 21st century art forms.
- Impact of state laws and rules on arts education in schools.
- Alignment of arts and creativity education with high school graduation and post-secondary education.
- Alignment of arts and creativity education with workforce and entrepreneurial development, including identified 21st century skills.
- Equity of access and participation within arts and creativity in education programs.
- Teacher education and learning strategies to advance arts and creativity in education.

This conversation- A debate about arts education

This Conversation

By Douglas McLennan

For decades, as teaching of the arts has been cut back in our public schools, alarms have been raised about the dire consequences for American culture. Artists and arts organizations stepped in to try to... take up some of the slack. Foundations funded programs to take art into the schools. But producers of art aren't primarily in the education business. Schools increasingly focused on meeting basic skills benchmarks have less and less time to make room for study of the arts. And technology has spawned a vast, crowded, and alluring marketplace of creativity competing for attention. New research Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy by RAND and sponsored by The Wallace Foundation suggests that a generation of Americans has not developed the knowledge or skills to engage with our cultural heritage. Without that engagement, the arts as we know them are unsustainable over the long run. Can anything be done?

This Arts Journal blog brought in some key thinkers in the arts to debate about arts education.

http://www.artsjournal.com/artsed/2008/11/this-blog.html

Seven skills students desperately need

Today's students could fail at life, says Harvard's Tony Wagner, because their schools are too busy teaching to the test

By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor

1. Problem-solving and critical thinking;
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
3. Agility and adaptability;
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship;
5. Effective written and oral communication;
6. Accessing and analyzing information; and
7. Curiosity and imagination.

For more by Tony Wagner, go to: http://www.schoolchange.org/

Tony Wagner has served as Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education since its inception in 2000. An initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CLG is an "R & D" center that helps teams to be effective change leaders in schools and districts. He is also on the faculty of the Executive Leadership Program for Educators, a joint initiative of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Business School, and Kennedy School of Government. Tony consults widely to public and independent schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally and has been Senior Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the past eight years.

Tony has worked for more than thirty-five years in the field of school improvement, and he is a frequent keynote speaker and widely published author on education and society. Prior to assuming his current position at Harvard, Tony was a high school teacher for twelve years; a school principal; a university professor in teacher education; co-founder and first executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility; project director for the Public Agenda Foundation in New York; and President and CEO of the Institute for Responsive Education. He earned his a Masters of Arts in Teaching and Doctorate in Education at Harvard University.

Tony’s publications include numerous articles in both education journals and national magazines and four books. Tony's latest 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 has just published by Basic Books. Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, written in collaboration with Robert Kegan and colleagues of the Change Leadership Group, was published by Jossey-Bass last year. Routledge publishes Tony’s two other books: the highly acclaimed Making the Grade: Reinventing America’s Schools and How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited.

What is art for?

This NYTimes article on the work of Lewis Hyde introduces us to a great thinker in the arts who should be considered in conversations related to the creative economy, the development of 'genius', and issues related to cultural commons vs copyright.

“It takes a capacious mind to play host to … others and to find new ways to combine what they have to offer,” Hyde writes, “but not a mind for whom there are no masters, not a ‘unique.’ Quite the opposite — this is a mind willing to be taught, willing to be inhabited, willing to labor in the cultural commons.”

"... the predicament of all artists living “in an age whose values are market values and whose commerce consists almost exclusively in the purchase and sale of commodities.” For centuries people have been speaking of talent and inspiration as gifts; Hyde’s basic argument was that this language must extend to the products of talent and inspiration too. Unlike a commodity, whose value begins to decline the moment it changes hands, an artwork gains in value from the act of being circulated—published, shown, written about, passed from generation to generation — from being, at its core, an offering."