IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts' newsletter for Wednesday, May 28, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.

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THE RENAISSANCE GENERATION
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HOW TO REACH AND ENGAGE THE RENAISSANCE GENERATION
Shannon Buggs, Houston Chronicle, 5/9/08
Patricia Martin, “a cultural marketing consultant based in Chicago, is documenting a ‘cultural metamorphosis’ that is part of ‘the disruption that occurs when the dominant civilization loses its relevance and another rises to replace it.’ And what comes next is the renaissance generation, RenGen for short, an era dominated by people who are "smart, self-expressive, idealistic and cynical all at once," she predicts. Martin writes about the phenomenon in her book RenGen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What It Means to Your Business.
Read more>>


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EDUCATION FOR NATIVE AMERICANS
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GUITAR HEROES
Associated Press in Teacher Magazine, 5/21/08
” More than two dozen educators are learning to play acoustic guitar as part of a unique program to bring music into the classrooms. Sally Greywolf, whose husband teaches in the area [of Crownpoint, New Mexico], was wondering how to get more music in school when she came across a magazine article about the Guitars in the Classroom program. She contacted the organization on the slim chance that such a program could be started in Crownpoint on the Navajo Nation. To her surprise, she spoke to the director, who had spent time in the reservation town of Chinle, Ariz., and was willing to work with Greywolf. Greywolf found an instructor and a place to meet, while the program supplied the guitars and provided a small stipend to pay the instructor.”
Read more (requires free registration)>>

ON THE RESERVATION AND OFF, SCHOOLS SEE A CHANGING TIDE
Kirk Johnson, New York Times, 5/25/08
”Many [Crow] families … are deciding that off-reservation public schools … are a better choice than schools on the reservation. Hardin High School, 55 percent white in 2000, is now 70 percent American Indian. On the reservation, at Lodge Grass High School, more than a third of the student enrollment in 2000 has melted away. The stigma that was once attached to sending a child off the reservation — the legacy of forced boarding-school programs in the early 1900s that tried to strip Indians of their culture and language in the name of assimilation — has faded as elders who remember the old days die off … Home games for the Hardin Bulldogs football team — majority Indian this season for the first time — now begin with traditional Indian drumming, and the Crow language is studied alongside French and Spanish … Indian pottery-making is so well established in the art department that schools from other parts of the state now come to learn.”
Read more>>


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CREATIVE WORK CONFERENCE RECAP
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CREATIVE LEARNING, CREATIVE WORK:
PREPARING YOUNG PEOPLE FOR NYC’S CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
”In 2007 CAE hosted Creative Learning, Creative Work: Preparing Young People for NYC’s Creative Industries at the Hearst Corporation. The conference, which brought together business leaders with New York City public school educators, focused on the role of arts education in connecting the worlds of learning and work in NYC.”
Read the summary or download podcasts>>


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HEALING POWER OF MUSIC
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A MUSICIAN WHO PERFORMS WITH A SCALPEL
David Dobbs, New York Times, 5/20/08
”For Claudius Conrad, a 30-year-old surgeon who has played the piano seriously since he was 5, music and medicine are entwined — from the academic realm down to the level of the fine-fingered dexterity required at the piano bench and the operating table … Dr. Conrad, a third-year surgical resident at Harvard Medical School who also holds doctorates in stem cell biology and music philosophy, recently published a provocative paper suggesting that music may exert healing and sedative effects partly through a paradoxical stimulation of a growth hormone generally associated with stress rather than healing. This jump in growth hormone, said Dr. John Morley, an endocrinologist at St. Louis University Medical Center who was not involved with the study, ‘is not what you’d expect, and it’s not precisely clear what it means.’ But he said it raised ‘some wonderful new possibilities about the physiology of healing,’ and added: ‘And of course it has a nice sort of metaphorical ring. We used to talk about the neuroendocrine system being a sort of neuronal orchestra conductor directing the immune system. Here we have music stimulating this conductor to get the healing process started.’”
Read more>>


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DEVELOPING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OLDER ADULTS TO CONTRIBUTE
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12 CHICAGO-AREA CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AWARDED GRANTS TO ‘JUMPSTART THE CONVERSATION’
PR Newswire, 5/6/08
”Twelve organizations in the Chicago metro area have been awarded ‘JumpStart the Conversation’ grants for projects designed to provide opportunities for older adults to contribute to the cultural life of their communities. The grants were introduced after a recent workshop at the Chicago Cultural Center, Engaging Older Adults Through Arts and Culture: Developing a Livable Chicago for All Ages. The workshop was the fifth of six regional workshops focused on creating livable communities for all ages. The workshops and grants are part of a national Aging in Place Initiative undertaken by Partners for Livable Communities (Partners) and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a), with funding provided by MetLife Foundation. The workshop was hosted by the City of Chicago, Chicago Department of Senior Services, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago Arts and Business Council, Chicago Life Opportunities Initiative, and The Center for Creative Aging at Harold Washington College.”
Learn more>>


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NEW BOOK
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ARTS, INC: HOW GREED AND NEGLECT HAVE DESTROYED OUR CULTURAL RIGHTS
Bill Ivey, University of California Press, 2008
“In this impassioned and persuasive book, Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage—the expressive life of America. In eight succinct chapters, Ivey blends personal and professional memoir, policy analysis, and deeply held convictions to explore and define a coordinated vision for art, culture, and expression in American life.”
Learn more>>>


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GRANTS AND AWARDS
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GRANTS FOR EDUCATION, COMMUNITY, AND MEDICINE/HEALTH
RGK Foundation
Maximum Awards: usually under $25,000
Deadline for Letter of Inquiry: N/A
”RGK Foundation awards grants in the broad areas of Education, Community, and Medicine/Health. The Foundation's primary interests within Education include programs that focus on formal K-12 education (particularly mathematics, science and reading), teacher development, literacy, and higher education.”
Learn more>>

GRANTS FOR INCLUSION OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation
Maximum Award: See Web site for past grant awards
Deadline for concept papers: 6/1/08 **Coming Soon ***
”Through its National Grant program, MEAF provides funding to nonprofit organizations that are working toward the full inclusion of young people with disabilities in society. Proposed projects should be national in scope and impact or model projects that can be replicated at multiple sites.”
Learn more>>

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IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts' newsletter for Wednesday, May 21, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.

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REDEFINING GIFTED & TALENTED
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IDEAS ON CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL IQ UNDERLIE NEW TESTS OF GIFTEDNESS
Debra Viadero, Education Week, 5/21/08
“Yale University researchers are pilot-testing an assessment for identifying gifted and talented children that taps intellectual skills other than those captured by traditional intelligence tests. The new tests include questions … designed to measure students’ creativity. The new battery is based on [Robert J.] Sternberg’s definition of “successful intelligence,” which holds that people who succeed in the real world possess a combination of practical, creative, and analytical skills.”
Read more>>


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BEHAVIORS OF SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS
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STUDENT TURNAROUND BUILT ON TEACHING STUDENTS TO BE STUDENTS
Emily Alpert, Voice of San Diego, 4/25/08
”Five years ago, suspensions abounded at Webster Elementary. Fights regularly erupted during recess and teachers feared violent outbursts from gang-involved 6th graders. Fast forward to 2008. Students cheerfully greet their teachers by name, line up quickly, and listen respectfully to each other in class. The endless procession of kids to the principal's office has stopped. [Principal] White now spends her mornings ranging freely between classrooms to observe teachers and videotaping their best lessons to share. Teachers chalk up the turnaround to a homegrown program that explicitly teaches students how to behave in class . . . White and her teachers crafted the Webster Way, which teaches ‘scholarly behavior’ such as eye contact, cleaning up your trash, and greeting teachers by name.”
Read more>>


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ART? SCIENCE?
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GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS
Lawrence Van Gelder, New York Times, 5/15/08
May 15, 2008
”Possibly the leader of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday could be considered a conductor. Definitely the leader was a semiconductor — a whole lot of them, The Associated Press reported. Asimo, a 4-foot-3-inch Honda robot, led the orchestra in a performance of ‘The Impossible Dream’ from Man of La Mancha. . . . Asimo mimicked the actions of a conductor, nodding at sections of the ensemble during the performance and gesturing with one or both hands. At the end Asimo — an aconym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility — was greeted by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma . . .and enthusiastic shouts from the audience. Engineers based the robot’s motions on those of Charles Burke, the orchestra’s education director, as he conducted the piece about six months ago.”
Read more>>


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PARTNERING PROFESSIONAL ACTORS AND STUDENTS
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WHERE THE KIDS, NOT THE STARS, ARE THE STARS
Kathryn Shattuck, New York Times, 5/18/08
“As members of the 52nd Street Project, the theater program for Hell’s Kitchen children, the young performers long ago learned to treat the celebrities in their midst like regular folks. For 27 years the project has provided 9- to 18-year-olds with guidance in playwriting and acting by an enviable roster of volunteers, including … Frances McDormand, . . . Jon Stewart … and Sam Waterston . . . [T]he project annually stages some 80 plays created by its 110 students, with a little adult collaboration. On Tuesday the project broke ground for its first permanent theater, part of the Archstone Clinton development on 10th Avenue at 52nd Street. Designed by BKSK Architects, the 17,000-square-foot space will be home to a two-story black-box theater as well as rehearsal rooms, a lounge and kitchen, offices, a computer bar and an area for academic tutoring.”
Read more>>


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GENDER IN EDUCATION
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AAUW SEES NO EDUCATIONAL CRISIS FOR BOYS
Debra Viadero, Education Week, 5/20/08
”Even though more women and girls are getting college degrees and scoring in the top ranks on national math tests than was the case in the 1970s, their academic gains have not come at the expense of boys, says a report released today by the American Association of University Women. Some researchers and advocates have made the case in recent years for a ‘boys' crisis’ in education, pointing out, for instance, that boys have begun to trail girls on key academic indicators, such as in rates of enrollment in and graduation from college. But the AAUW, the Washington-based group that sparked a national debate about gender disparities in education with a report issued 16 years ago, contends bluntly in its new report that the fears about boys are overstated.”
Read the article>>
Read the AAUW report>>


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GRANTS AND AWARDS
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RACHEL CARSON SENSE OF WONDER CONTEST
Maximum Award: Publication on sponsors’ Web site
Deadline: 6/16/08
“The EPA, Generations United, and the Rachel Carson Council, Inc., announce a poetry, essay, and photography contest ‘that best expresses the Sense of Wonder that you feel for the sea, the night sky, forests, birds, wildlife, and all that is beautiful to your eyes.’ We want you to share this love of nature with a child and others around you. When we teach our eyes and ears and senses to focus on the wonders of nature, we open ourselves to the wonders around us.” Entries should be created by an intergenerational team featuring a youth under 18 and an adult aged 50 or older.
Learn more>>

EZRA JACK KEATS MINI-GRANT PROGRAM
FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Maximum Award: $500
Deadline: 9/15/08
Provides funding for creative literacy initiatives in schools and public libraries.
Learn more>>


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IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts' newsletter for Wednesday, May 14, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.


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REPORTS AND RESEARCH
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THE POWER OF FAMILY CONVERSATION:
SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMS HELP PARENTS BUILD CHILDREN’S LITERACY FROM BIRTH
Laura Pappano, Harvard Education Letter, May/June 2008
“School matters, but literacy starts at home. Teachers armed with reading contracts and carefully worded missives have long urged parents to read aloud to their children. But now there is a second and perhaps more powerful message: Talk to your kids, too. Mounting research that links language-rich home environments with reading success and school achievement is driving educators and community groups to target families long before children register for school. In addition to Todd Risley and Betty Hart’s landmark work correlating verbal home environments with future literacy, Catherine E. Snow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and David K. Dickinson, a professor of teaching and learning at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, are assembling data on the impact of early literacy interventions. Their ongoing study of 57 low-income families reveals that home support for literacy markedly influences kindergarten language skills and fourth grade reading comprehension test scores. No wonder those at the leading edge of literacy want to increase the quantity and quality of conversations between parents and children beginning at birth. ‘It is really what parents have been doing at home that children have to draw on when they become readers and writers,’ says Gail Jordan.”
Read more>>


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THE POWER OF CHILDREN'S RESEARCH
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REMARKABLE RESEARCH PROJECT UNEARTHS WORLD WAR II HERO
“Some enterprising students from rural Kansas discovered a Catholic woman who saved Jewish children during World War II. The story began when four high school students were shown a news clipping, which said, 'Irena Sendler saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942-43.' The students began to research this amazingly underreported story by looking through primary and secondary sources. They eventually found that Irena Sendler, a Warsaw social worker, had gone into the ghetto and talked Jewish parents and grandparents into letting her take their children in order to save them from death camps. She then took the children past Nazi guards and had them adopted into the homes of Polish families or hid them in convents and orphanages. In addition, she made lists of the children's real names and put the lists in jars that were then buried. At one point, the Nazis captured her and she was beaten severely, but the Polish underground bribed a guard to release her, and she went into hiding. After the students' diligent research, they wrote a play depicting Sendler's life. Since then, they have performed for numerous clubs and civic groups all over the U.S. and Europe, notching at least 225 presentations. The students also bring a jar to every performance, aptly titled "Life in a Jar," and collect funds ... for the care of Irena and other rescuers.”
Learn more>>
(Found via PEN News Blast)

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KIDS AND TECHNOLOGY
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ARE WIRED KIDS WELL SERVED BY SCHOOLS?
Stefanie Olsen, CNET News Blog, 4/24/08
“Among the generation of kids growing up wired, many teens are hyper-motivated to learn a special skill like how to create a podcast, direct a YouTube video, publish an anime site, or hack an iPhone. Now if only teachers could inspire such ingenuity. That was one of the basic questions that had academics scratching their heads here Wednesday at Stanford University, where a group of researchers from the University of Southern California and University of California at Berkeley presented their first findings from one of the largest ethnographic studies on kids in digital environments. (An ethnographic study draws on fieldwork to provide a descriptive picture of a group. The full research will be published later this year as part of a MacArthur Foundation grant.) Sure, kids have long been attracted to extracurricular activities like dance or sports. But researchers say digital media is bringing up a new generation who are creators of media rather than just passive consumers of it. Within these digital environments among peers, kids who create and evaluate media are deriving a sense of competence, autonomy, self-determination and connectedness, researchers say.”
Read more>>

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REPLACING ARTS WITH P.E.
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BILL TO REQUIRE P.E. ELIMINATES ARTS ELECTIVES
Jerry F. Rutledge, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 5/6/08
“Smiths Station High School senior Jordan Hatch can't conceive of a world without music or theater … Hatch is a member of the high school's award-winning chamber choir, one of the highly acclaimed choirs in Alabama for more than a decade. He and other students and faculty are concerned that a bill before the Alabama Legislature could limit or eliminate choir and other electives from the curriculum in favor of more physical education time.”
Read more>>


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GRANTS, AWARDS, AND CONTESTS
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NSTA NEW SCIENCE TEACHER ACADEMY
National Science Teachers Association; sponsored by Amgen Foundation
Award: Program Expenses covered
Eligibility: Teachers with a minimum of 51% of courses in middle or high school science
Deadline: 5/23/08 ***COMING SOON***”
NSTA New Science Teacher Academy, cofounded by the Amgen Foundation, is a professional development initiative created to help promote quality science teaching, enhance teacher confidence and classroom excellence, and improve teacher content knowledge The NSTA New Science Teacher Academy endeavors to use mentoring and other professional development resources to support science teachers during the often challenging, initial teaching years and to help them stay in the profession.” NSTA Fellows receive many benefits, including e-Mentoring and facilitated online curriculum.”
Learn more>>

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IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts' newsletter for Wednesday, May 7, 2008. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.


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ARTS IN N.Y.C.
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ASK ABOUT THE HEALTH OF THE ARTS
New York Times, 5/5/08
“This week, through Friday, Randall Bourscheidt, the president of a nonprofit arts organization in New York that conducts research and also runs a cultural guide and calendar, will be answering readers’ questions about the economic health of the arts in the city, and what the city is doing to strengthen its commitment to the vitality of the arts.”
Submit a question>>


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COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
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PROGRAM SHINES A LIGHT OF GUIDANCE
Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/27/08
”Richardo Grimsley, a sophomore at Pittsburgh Westinghouse High School in Homewood, said he sometimes thought about writing poetry but didn't put pen to paper until a new after-school program debuted in October. So far, he has written 20 poems, including ‘Fantasy,’ about his childhood dreams, and ‘Get Up,’ about his struggles with adversity. He's also refurbishing a bicycle through the program. Called the Lighthouse Project, the program represents the Pittsburgh public schools' first efforts to create ‘community’ or ‘full-service’ schools that go beyond education to focus on students' health and welfare. Many community schools serve adults, too. They often stay open well into the evening, providing a range of social services to lift individuals, mend families and revitalize neighborhoods.”
Read more>>


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KEEPING AN AGILE MIND
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CAN YOU BECOME A CREATURE OF NEW HABITS?
Janet Rae-Dupree, New York Times, 5/4/08
”[I]t seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.”
Read more>>


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ARTS, POLITICS, AND SCHOOLS
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DRAWING LESSONS
Ann Hulbert, New York Times, 4/27/08
”[L]ately Barack Obama has gotten on the arts-education bandwagon. In a speech this month, he riffed a little stiffly about the good old days, before No Child Left Behind, when all schools made time for the arts: ‘People understood, even though they hadn’t done the scientific research back then we have done now, that children who learn music actually do better in math, children whose imaginations are sparked by the arts are more engaged in school.’ . . . As Obama’s appeal to the achievement-boosting effects of the arts only goes to show, it’s hard to buck the narrow No Child Left Behind ethos he laments. If the arts can be celebrated as catalysts for improved performance in other subjects — the subjects that are tested and therefore respected — the hope is they won’t get treated as expendable frills. So advocates celebrate the arts’ score-enhancing influence across the school spectrum. Huckabee often invoked higher SATs as a reason to teach the arts. Obama cites sober social-science research on the poor city neighborhoods he knows best. ‘Studies in Chicago have demonstrated,’ his arts statement reads, ‘that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.’ There’s just one problem with this ostensibly hardheaded defense of arts education. The studies invoked as proof that involvement in band — or dance or sculpture — spurs higher academic performance actually show nothing of the sort. To the consternation of arts proponents wedded to this way of arguing, the instrumental logic has been challenged by a team of investigators affiliated with Harvard’s Project Zero, an education research group with a focus on the arts.”
Read more>>


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CONNECTIONS
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CABDRIVER THANKED FOR RETURNING A STRADIVARIUS
Richard G. Jones, New York Times, 5/7/08
”On April 21, [Philippe] Quint accidentally left a Stradivarius violin, valued at $4 million, in the back seat of a cab that he took from the airport to Manhattan on his return from a performance in Dallas. After several frantic hours, the Newark police told him the violin had been found and was at the airport taxi stand with the cabdriver who had taken him home. The two connected, and the violin was returned … The city of Newark awarded Mr. Khalil, who has driven a taxi here since 1985, a Medallion, its highest honor. Mr. Quint gave him a $100 tip when the violin was returned, but he wanted to do more, so he arranged for Tuesday’s concert in a parking-lot-turned-theater [at the Newark Liberty International Airport].”
Read more>>


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A BLOG TO WATCH
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EYE LEVEL
Smithsonian American Art Museum
”Using the museum’s collection as a touchstone, the conversation at Eye Level will be dedicated to American art and the ways in which the nation’s art reflects its history and culture. The discussion will extend beyond the walls of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection to include other collections, exhibitions, and events. Eye Level will also document the extraordinary collaboration between curators, conservators, handlers, historians, enthusiasts, critics, exhibition and new media designers, and of course bloggers that has motivated the past and present of American art history.”
Read it>>

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GRANTS AND AWARDS
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GRANTS FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Mr. Holland’s Opus Award
Maximum Award: $500 - $8.000
Deadline: 8/1/08
The Melody and Special Projects Programs of the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation provide financial support for musical instruments for daytime or after-school music programs.
Learn more>>


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