Visual and Performing Arts Education News
The Arts Connect! Conference
Friday, October 9, 2009 - Point Lookout, Northport, ME
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The Arts Connect! conference was a success! You can read about and see pictures of the conference that was held on October 8 and 9th at the meartsed blog at http://meartsed.wordpress.com/ |
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During the past two years the Maine the Department of Education collaborated with the Maine Alliance for Arts Education and a Design Team led by researcher Dennie Wolf to survey Maine arts educators. The statewide census looked at arts education opportunities and conditions. Funding was provided by The Betterment Fund, the John F. Kennedy Center, and the Maine Arts Commission.
Over a third of the arts teachers in Maine, 44% of the schools, responded to a survey about their programs and their working lives as educators. The initial report was released at The Arts Connect! conference on October 9th, 2009, to the 275 arts educators who attended. The Executive Summary (see below) includes plans for the next steps.
Executive Summary (PDF)
Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS) Workshop Sponsored by Maine Department of Education and Center for Maine Contemporary Art
On Friday, April 10, 2009, 85 educators representing K-Higher Education from visual arts, world languages, technology, leadership, and gifted and talented traveled from all regions in Maine to participate in a Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) workshop http://www.vtshome.org/. It took place at the beautiful Point Lookout in Northport http://www.visitpointlookout.com/. We were on top of the mountain on a gorgeous day.
Trainers Willamarie Moore from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts http://www.mfa.org/and Michelle Grohe from the Gardner Museum http://www.gardnermuseum.org/ in Boston did an outstanding job of presenting the information on VTS and consistently modeled the VTS techniques.
Philip Yenawine, co-author of VTS says: "kids start using their eyes to make sense of the world when they open them as infants. They look around them and they reason. Schooling very rarely takes any kind of advantage of that incredible strength that people have." VTS is a program designed to encourage students to take advantage of those natural skills which develops their critical thinking skills and apply them to learning.
You can see pictures of the event and learn more about the day at the arts education blog at http://meartsed.wordpress.com. The blog post is called Visual Thinking Strategies Workshop.
We may be offering further training on VTS in the future. If this is something you are interested in please contact Argy Nestor @ argy.nestor@maine.gov
Regional Professional Communities
The RPC's have been a success with just over 100 arts educators attending 8 meetings. A variety of topics were discussed, questions were asked and teachers shared numerous ideas and lessons. The evaluations supported meetings in the future. More information will be coming about this in the future. If you did not attend and are interested in participating please contact Argy Nestor at argy.nestor@maine.gov
Arts Electronic Newsletter
The Arts Education Electronic Newsletter “Greetings from Argy’s Cubby with a View of the State House Dome” is published every two weeks from the Office of the Visual and Performing Arts at the Maine Department of Education. If you are not receiving the newsletter please email argy.nestor@maine.gov and request to be added to the mailing list.
Arts Newsletter #50 in PDF 20 January 2009
Arts Newsletter #49 in PDF 6 January 2009
Arts Newsletter #48 in PDF 9 December 2008
Arts Newsletter #47 in PDF 18 November 2008
Arts Newsletter #46 in PDF 4 November 2008
Arts Newsletter #45 in PDF 21 October 2008
Arts Newsletter #44 in PDF 7 October 2008
Arts Newsletter #43 in PDF 23 September 2008
Arts NewsLetter #42 in PDF 9 September 2008
Arts NewsLetter #41 in PDF 26 August 2008
Arts NewsLetter #40 in PDF 12 August 2008
Arts Newsletter #39 in PDF 29 July 2008
Arts Newsletter #38 in PDF 15 July 2008
Arts Newsletter #37 in PDF 1 July 2008
Arts Newsletter #36 in PDF 17 June 2008
Arts Newsletter #35 in PDF 03 June 2008
Arts Newsletter #34 in PDF 20 May 2008
Arts Newsletter #33 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #32 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #31 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #30 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #29 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #28 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #27 - PDF
Arts Newsletter # 26 - PDF
Arts Newsletter #25
Arts Newsletter #24
Arts Newsletter #23
Arts Newsletter #22
Arts Newsletter #21
Arts Newsletter #20
Arts Newsletter #19
Arts Newsletter #18
Arts Newsletter #17
Arts Newsletter #16
Arts Newsletter #15
Arts Newsletter #14
Arts Newsletter #13
Arts Newsletter #12
Arts Newsletter #11
Arts Newsletter #10
Arts Newsletter #9
Arts Newsletter #8
Arts Newsletter #7
Arts Newsletter #6
Arts Newsletter #5
Arts Newsletter #4
Arts Newsletter #3
Arts Newsletter #2
Arts Newsletter #1
If you had any trouble accessing the Newsletters you can view them on this link to read back issues : http://mailman.informe.org/pipermail/doe-arts/
Updated 10/22/09 -pb
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