IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts’ weekly newsletter for October 3, 2007. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and is archived here on the IEA blog.

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STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TRADITION AND ACADEMICS
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VARIED STRATEGIES SOUGHT FOR NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS
Mary Ann Zehr, Education Week, 9/24/07
”Educators working to improve the performance of Native American students are struggling to find the right balance between core academics and attention to native culture as a way to help engage and motivate children, according to those at a multistate gathering on the topic .... But the educators and scholars from a number of Western and Midwestern states agreed on at least one thing: If they want to improve achievement for all students, they’re going to have to improve it for their American Indian students, who represent a large, and in many cases increasing, portion of their enrollments. ‘This conference wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for the No Child Left Behind Act,’ said Rick Melmer, South Dakota’s secretary of education, whose department was host to the 2007 Indian Education Summit. Thanks to the 5½-year-old federal law’s requirement that schools track test scores and adequate yearly progress for Native Americans and other subgroups, Mr. Melmer said, people in his state became acutely aware that large numbers of Indian students weren’t doing well and that something needed to be done about it.”
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APPLYING CREATIVE THINKING
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CREATIVITY CHALLENGES: UNEVEN BARS
PBS Parents Guide to Creativity, PBS.org
”Create a virtual gymnastics routine on the uneven bars, and discuss the difficulty of the individual skills and the overall presentation of the routine. Examine how a gymnast uses body, mind and skills in the pursuit of an uneven bar routine.”
Visit the site>>


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USING SOCIAL NETWORKING TO BUILD A MUSEUM
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NEW SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM APPEARS ONLINE
Brett Zongker, Washington Post/Associated Press, 9/26/07
“The Smithsonian Institution's museum dedicated to black history and culture launches this week with an interactive Web site - long before its building opens for visitors on the National Mall. Social-networking technology donated by IBM Corp. will allow visitors to help produce content for future exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Almost anything is fair game _ long essays, short vignettes of memories or recorded oral histories. The museum plans to add video capabilities in the future. ‘The culture of the African American experience ... is too important to wait five or 10 years until the building is open,’ said Lonnie Bunch, the museum's founding director. ‘I wanted people to know that from the day I was hired, this museum exists.’ Museum staff will monitor the site for historical accuracy, and technical filters will block racist or inappropriate comments, said Bunch, adding that the site is really a ‘virtual museum’ and a new source of research for curators and scholars. Museum officials began thinking about launching the Web site during an explosion in the popularity of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. That's when Bunch and IBM Chairman Samuel Palmisano, who sits on the museum's advisory board, got to talking. IBM eventually agreed to donate $1 million worth of hardware, software and services to build the site. ‘The museum thought, 'Let's harness this. Let's build a social network that brings together people interested in the African American experience ... all those people that are your visitors but who have great stories to tell,’’ said John Tolva, IBM's senior manager for cultural programs.
Read more>>
Visit the online museum>>


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MAKING A BUSINESS OF ART
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GREENSTREET: FROM THE STUDIO TO YOUR HOME
Amanda Lankerd, MI Life, MI Times email newsletter, 9/24/07
”How do you turn fine art into a profitable business? That's what the group at Greenstreet Arts is determined to find out. Head east from Battle Creek to the small town of Marshall [Michigan] to find Greenstreet’s designers developing a unique, custom-made line of home decor. The team’s first products -- handmade, glass drawer pulls and tiles -- are already for sale at Greenstreet’s Gallery. The artists plan to expand their product line by producing prototypes for coordinating folding room screens, lighting fixtures and tables. Utilizing the services of the Arts & Industry Council’s Creative Industries Incubation Network, this team of artisans will establish sales relationships, marketing methodologies, and sound business plans for each of their future endeavors. With the resources provided by the council, Greenstreet will also be able to form partnerships for manufacturing its goods on a larger scale as the company continues to grow.”
Read more>>
Visit Greenstreet Arts online>>
Learn about the Arts & Industry Council’s Creative Industries Incubation Network>>

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SKILLS FOR GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS
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CREATIVE INGENUITY, INNOVATION: NEEDED FOR GLOBAL ECONOMY
[EDITORIAL]
John Eger, San Diego Business Journal, 9/17/07
“Congress passed [the America Competes Act], signed by President Bush last month, that calls for $33.6 billion for research and education programs for ‘science, technology, engineering and math to address the challenges facing American competitiveness in the global economy.’ … This broad-based, bipartisan legislation won strong support from business, industry, labor and consumer groups worried that America is slipping woefully behind other nations in these vital areas. Yet, the idea of a classical liberal education was not discussed or even paid homage to, some educators complained. While the bill may appear to be a major step forward, they argue the contrary … Indeed, a new study from the Center on Education Policy says that enactment of the Bush administration’s well-known No Child Left Behind legislation has been devastating to K-12 curriculums. Nearly half of U.S. school districts have reduced the time their students spend on subjects such as art and music … There is only one way for America to compete in this new global age. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said it best in his commencement address to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last summer: ‘If the U.S. is to compete effectively with the rest of the world in the new global marketplace, it is not going to succeed through cheap labor or cheap raw materials, nor even the free flow of capital or a streamlined industrial base. To compete successfully, this country needs creativity, ingenuity, innovation. As Finn and Ravitch observed, ‘What makes Americans competitive on a shrinking, globalizing planet isn’t out-gunning Asians at technical skills. Rather, it’s our people’s creativity, versatility, imagination, restlessness, energy, ambition and problem-solving prowess.’ Most economists now seem to agree that the emerging so-called “creative and innovative” economy represents America’s salvation. Where then is the legislation that puts art, music, literature, civics and geography back into the K-12 curriculum?”
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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
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THE GARLANDED CLASSROOM
Graham Bowley, New York Times, 9/23/07
”Madison Avenue Presbyterian is not your ordinary nursery school. The school is inspired by an approach to teaching young children that was developed in the municipal schools of a northern Italian town called Reggio Emilia. This approach emphasizes the use of art in children’s learning and encourages a luxurious beauty in both their work and their surroundings. Classrooms are draped with cloth and garlanded with lattices and vines. Most of the schools have their own art rooms … The approach is based on the assumption that children learn best in groups and are resourceful enough to come up with their own ideas for lessons. Under the Reggio Emilia system, children investigate themes like angels or elevators; in one famous example, they built water wheels and fountains for an amusement park for birds. The method so engages and electrifies children, its supporters contend, that they create work of unparalleled beauty and complexity … A key tenet of the Reggio Emilia approach is that art helps children express their thoughts. Reggio classrooms are packed with a profusion of innovative materials for the children to work with, such as pebbles, dried orange peel, driftwood, tangles of wire and tin cans. ‘The environment as the third teacher’ is a favorite Reggio phrase. The approach also tries to make schoolhouses resemble places where everyday life goes on. They are often designed around a central piazza where children can mingle and talk.”
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GRANTS, FUNDING, CONTESTS, AND AWARDS
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LEARNING & LEADERSHIP GRANTS
NEA Foundation
Rolling Deadlines. Next deadline: 10/15/07
”Grants support public school teachers, public education support professionals, and/or faculty and staff in public institutions of higher education for one of the following two purposes: grants to individuals fund participation in high-quality professional development experiences, such as summer institutes or action research; grants to groups fund collegial study, including study groups, action research, lesson study, or mentoring experiences for faculty or staff new to an assignment … The grant amount is $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for groups engaged in collegial study.”
Learn more>>

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