DESIGN IS EVERYWHERE. Everything you use, drink out of and eat off of, every game you play, every piece of jewelry and accessory ever made, every automobile you drive, every building you see, every website and every piece of technology out there, was designed and/or created by an artist.
JOBS IN ART ARE GROWING. The CREATIVE SECTOR will be worth more than 6 TRILLION dollars within the next 15 years. Creativity is what Chief Executives are looking for in employees now for their businesses. check out the article below!
COLLEGES LOOK FOR WELL-ROUNDED STUDENTS.
Ivy League Schools as well all other Colleges and Universities look to give scholarships to students who have integrated fine arts in to their studies. Students who have a Fine Arts Education:
CULTIVATE HIGHER ORDERED THINKING SKILLS,
HAVE A BETTER ABILITY TO THINK ABSTRACTLY,
HAVE SHARPER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS,
AND STATISTICALLY SCORE HIGHER ON STANDARDIZED TESTS.
ART CLASSES HELP DEVELOP VISUAL LITERACY.
In the art classroom, through discussions, production, and critiques, students learn how to develop the language necessary to find the meaning of a piece of art.
Images are everywhere and every image has a message. Just like in any story, novel or editorial newspaper bit, what you read has a message. This message is either explicit in the language or implicit in its theme. All images you see; on the television, on billboards, at museums, on your phones, ad infinitum, also have a visual message that can be decoded.
We learn this language as artists and visual readers. The next time we see a wonderful artwork we can say more than, ' I like that,' or 'I could do that,' or 'That's stupid.' We will have a broadened vocabulary to describe and decode the image, find and interpret it's meaning, agree or disagree, and compare and contrast the work with others.
ART IS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE AND SUBJECT.
With the positive growing trend to understand, appreciate, and respect all cultures, the art classroom is a wonderful place to explore many people groups and their artwork.
ART COMPLIMENTS AND NATURALLY INTEGRATES IN TO ALL OTHER SUBJECT AREAS!
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ARTS ARTICLES
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COLLEGES LOOK FOR WELL-ROUNDED STUDENTS.
Ivy League Schools as well all other Colleges and Universities look to give scholarships to students who have integrated fine arts in to their studies. Students who have a Fine Arts Education:
CULTIVATE HIGHER ORDERED THINKING SKILLS,
HAVE A BETTER ABILITY TO THINK ABSTRACTLY,
HAVE SHARPER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS,
AND STATISTICALLY SCORE HIGHER ON STANDARDIZED TESTS.
ART CLASSES HELP DEVELOP VISUAL LITERACY.
In the art classroom, through discussions, production, and critiques, students learn how to develop the language necessary to find the meaning of a piece of art.
Images are everywhere and every image has a message. Just like in any story, novel or editorial newspaper bit, what you read has a message. This message is either explicit in the language or implicit in its theme. All images you see; on the television, on billboards, at museums, on your phones, ad infinitum, also have a visual message that can be decoded.
We learn this language as artists and visual readers. The next time we see a wonderful artwork we can say more than, ' I like that,' or 'I could do that,' or 'That's stupid.' We will have a broadened vocabulary to describe and decode the image, find and interpret it's meaning, agree or disagree, and compare and contrast the work with others.
ART IS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE AND SUBJECT.
With the positive growing trend to understand, appreciate, and respect all cultures, the art classroom is a wonderful place to explore many people groups and their artwork.
ART COMPLIMENTS AND NATURALLY INTEGRATES IN TO ALL OTHER SUBJECT AREAS!
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ARTS ARTICLES
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How the Arts Intersect with the Common Core State Standards
Kirsten Miller
When you watch a child engaging in the arts—whether it's dance, music, theater, visual arts, or even media arts—you are witnessing the development of the whole child. The intersection of the full-scale implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the impending release of the Next Generation Arts Standards, due out this spring, provides the perfect opportunity to consider how to integrate the arts into other academic subject areas.
Though the arts are among the first programs on the chopping block when school budgets are tight, they are not fluff: Research suggests that the arts foster critical thinking skills and processes that prepare students for college and the workplace. According to the 2012 report (PDF) by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, "the arts promote work habits that cultivate curiosity, imagination, creativity, and evaluation skills," and are "a basis for success in the 21st century" (2010, p. 2).
To date, the focus on Common Core integration across subjects has leaned heavily toward science and social studies, but there are several direct parallels between the arts and the Common Core standards (Riley, 2012):
And the benefits? Drawing on the natural intersections between Common Core standards and the arts means children who are actively engaged in learning, enhanced opportunities for teacher collaboration, and a whole lot of fun for you and your students.
References
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). English language arts standards: anchor standards: college and career readiness anchor standards for reading. Washington, DC: CCSSO & National Governors Association. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/R
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Standards for mathematical practice. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Mission statement. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2010). 21st Century Skills Map: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.arteducators.org/research/21st_Century_Skills_Arts_Map.pdf
National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. (2012). The Inclusion of Media Arts in Next Generation Arts Standards. Retrieved from http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/NCCAS_%26_Media_Arts_7-28-12+FINAL.pdf
Riley, S. (November 30, 2012). Use arts integration to enhance the Common Core [blog post]. Retrieved from Education Trends at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/core-practices-arts-integration-susan-riley
Riley, S. (2011, December 22). Creating harmony in Common Core: Where do we fit in? [Prezi file]. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/kd3d17zl1aof/creating-harmony-in-common-core-where-do-we-fit-in/
When you watch a child engaging in the arts—whether it's dance, music, theater, visual arts, or even media arts—you are witnessing the development of the whole child. The intersection of the full-scale implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the impending release of the Next Generation Arts Standards, due out this spring, provides the perfect opportunity to consider how to integrate the arts into other academic subject areas.
Though the arts are among the first programs on the chopping block when school budgets are tight, they are not fluff: Research suggests that the arts foster critical thinking skills and processes that prepare students for college and the workplace. According to the 2012 report (PDF) by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, "the arts promote work habits that cultivate curiosity, imagination, creativity, and evaluation skills," and are "a basis for success in the 21st century" (2010, p. 2).
To date, the focus on Common Core integration across subjects has leaned heavily toward science and social studies, but there are several direct parallels between the arts and the Common Core standards (Riley, 2012):
- Process produces product: When we think arts integration, we automatically make connections to English language arts (for example, assigning an essay about Michelangelo and his art during a history unit on the Renaissance). But, as Riley notes, the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice connect both subject areas to the Studio Thinking Framework's Eight Habits of Mind. For example, Mathematical Practice Standard 1, "make sense of problems and persevere in solving them," directly aligns with the "engage and persist" habit of mind. Mathematical Practice Standard 4, "model with mathematics," can be linked to music, and Mathematical Practice Standard 6's, "attend to precision," is also necessary when learning to play an instrument.
Integrating the arts into math—or any other subject area—can "provide students with time to compare sources, conduct research, and focus on the process of their work" (Riley, 2012). These guidelines can help you get started. - Access points: Most people can immediately relate to art, whether it's dance, drama, or drawing. Integrating the arts into other subject areas provides ways for students to connect content to their lives (Riley, 2012), which is aligned with the Common Core mission statement that the standards be "robust and relevant to the real world" (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d.).
- True equity: Central to the development of the Common Core State Standards is the notion that all students are capable of achieving to high standards, and integrating the arts into academic content areas offers opportunities for teachers to individualize instruction and reach students in ways that attend to their specific cultural, social, emotional, and intellectual needs (Riley, 2012).
- Analytic practice: The Common Core reading and math standards both focus on the need for analysis; for example, the third College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Reading is to "analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text"; and analysis is, as you would expect, woven throughout the mathematics standards. Similarly, understanding a piece of art or a musical composition requires analyzing each of its components (Riley, 2012).
And the benefits? Drawing on the natural intersections between Common Core standards and the arts means children who are actively engaged in learning, enhanced opportunities for teacher collaboration, and a whole lot of fun for you and your students.
References
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). English language arts standards: anchor standards: college and career readiness anchor standards for reading. Washington, DC: CCSSO & National Governors Association. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/R
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Standards for mathematical practice. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Mission statement. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2010). 21st Century Skills Map: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.arteducators.org/research/21st_Century_Skills_Arts_Map.pdf
National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. (2012). The Inclusion of Media Arts in Next Generation Arts Standards. Retrieved from http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/NCCAS_%26_Media_Arts_7-28-12+FINAL.pdf
Riley, S. (November 30, 2012). Use arts integration to enhance the Common Core [blog post]. Retrieved from Education Trends at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/core-practices-arts-integration-susan-riley
Riley, S. (2011, December 22). Creating harmony in Common Core: Where do we fit in? [Prezi file]. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/kd3d17zl1aof/creating-harmony-in-common-core-where-do-we-fit-in/
Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best. Art and music are key to student development. by Fran Smith
"Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence," sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz has said. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. Years of research show that it's closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity.
Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill. Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and teamwork. A 2005 report by the Rand Corporation about the visual arts argues that the intrinsic pleasures and stimulation of the art experience do more than sweeten an individual's life -- according to the report, they "can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of seeing," creating the foundation to forge social bonds and community cohesion. And strong arts programming in schools helps close a gap that has left many a child behind: From Mozart for babies to tutus for toddlers to family trips to the museum, the children of affluent, aspiring parents generally get exposed to the arts whether or not public schools provide them. Low-income children, often, do not. "Arts education enables those children from a financially challenged background to have a more level playing field with children who have had those enrichment experiences,'' says Eric Cooper, president and founder of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education.
It has become a mantra in education that No Child Left Behind, with its pressure to raise test scores, has reduced classroom time devoted to the arts (and science, social studies, and everything else besides reading and math). Evidence supports this contention -- we'll get to the statistics in a minute -- but the reality is more complex. Arts education has been slipping for more than three decades, the result of tight budgets, an ever-growing list of state mandates that have crammed the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential.
This erosion chipped away at the constituencies that might have defended the arts in the era of NCLB -- children who had no music and art classes in the 1970s and 1980s may not appreciate their value now. "We have a whole generation of teachers and parents who have not had the advantage of arts in their own education,'' says Sandra Ruppert, director of the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a national coalition of arts, business, education, philanthropic, and government organizations.
Yet against this backdrop, a new picture is emerging. Comprehensive, innovative arts initiatives are taking root in a growing number of school districts. Many of these models are based on new findings in brain research and cognitive development, and they embrace a variety of approaches: using the arts as a learning tool (for example, musical notes to teach fractions); incorporating arts into other core classes (writing and performing a play about, say, slavery); creating a school environment rich in arts and culture (Mozart in the hallways every day) and hands-on arts instruction. Although most of these initiatives are in the early stages, some are beginning to rack up impressive results. This trend may send a message to schools focused maniacally, and perhaps counterproductively, on reading and math.
"If they're worried about their test scores and want a way to get them higher, they need to give kids more arts, not less," says Tom Horne, Arizona's state superintendent of public instruction. "There's lots of evidence that kids immersed in the arts do better on their academic tests."
Education policies almost universally recognize the value of arts. Forty-seven states have arts-education mandates, forty-eight have arts-education standards, and forty have arts requirements for high school graduation, according to the 2007-08 AEP state policy database. The Goals 2000 Educate America Act, passed in 1994 to set the school-reform agenda of the Clinton and Bush administrations, declared art to be part of what all schools should teach. NCLB, enacted in 2001, included art as one of the ten core academic subjects of public education, a designation that qualified arts programs for an assortment of federal grants.
In a 2003 report, "The Complete Curriculum: Ensuring a Place for the Arts and Foreign Languages in American's Schools," a study group from the National Association of State Boards of Education noted that a substantial body of research highlights the benefits of arts in curriculum and called for stronger emphasis on the arts and foreign languages. As chairman of the Education Commission of the States from 2004 to 2006, Mike Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, launched an initiative designed, according to commission literature, to ensure every child has the opportunity to learn about, enjoy, and participate directly in the arts.
Top-down mandates are one thing, of course, and implementation in the classroom is another. Whatever NCLB says about the arts, it measures achievement through math and language arts scores, not drawing proficiency or music skills. It's no surprise, then, that many districts have zeroed in on the tests. A 2006 national survey by the Center on Education Policy, an independent advocacy organization in Washington, DC, found that in the five years after enactment of NCLB, 44 percent of districts had increased instruction time in elementary school English language arts and math while decreasing time spent on other subjects. A follow-up analysis, released in February 2008, showed that 16 percent of districts had reduced elementary school class time for music and art -- and had done so by an average of 35 percent, or fifty-seven minutes a week.
Some states report even bleaker numbers. In California, for example, participation in music courses dropped 46 percent from 1999-2000 through 2000-04, while total school enrollment grew nearly 6 percent, according to a study by the Music for All Foundation. The number of music teachers, meanwhile, declined 26.7 percent. In 2001, the California Board of Education set standards at each grade level for what students should know and be able to do in music, visual arts, theater, and dance, but a statewide study in 2006, by SRI International, found that 89 percent of K-12 schools failed to offer a standards-based course of study in all four disciplines. Sixty-one percent of schools didn't even have a full-time arts specialist.
Nor does support for the arts by top administrators necessarily translate into instruction for kids. For example, a 2005 report in Illinois found almost no opposition to arts education among principals and district superintendents, yet there were large disparities in school offerings around the state.
In many districts, the arts have suffered so long that it will take years, and massive investment, to turn things around. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has made arts education a priority in his school reform plans, and the city has launched sweeping initiatives to connect more students with the city's vast cultural resources. Nearly every school now offers at least some arts instruction and cultural programming, yet in 2007-08, only 45 percent of elementary schools and 33 percent of middle schools provided education in all four required art forms, according to an analysis by the New York City Department of Education, and only 34 percent of high schools offered students the opportunity to exceed the minimum graduation requirement.
Yet some districts have made great strides toward not only revitalizing the arts but also using them to reinvent schools. The work takes leadership, innovation, broad partnerships, and a dogged insistence that the arts are central to what we want students to learn.
In Dallas, for example, a coalition of arts advocates, philanthropists, educators, and business leaders have worked for years to get arts into all schools, and to get students out into the city's thriving arts community. Today, for the first time in thirty years, every elementary student in the Dallas Independent School District receives forty-five minutes a week of art and music instruction. In a February 2007 op-ed piece in the Dallas Morning News, Gigi Antoni, president and CEO of Big Thought, the nonprofit partnership working with the district, the Wallace Foundation, and more than sixty local arts and cultural institutions, explained the rationale behind what was then called the Dallas Arts Learning Initiative: "DALI was created on one unabashedly idealistic, yet meticulously researched, premise -- that students flourish when creativity drives learning."
The Minneapolis and Chicago communities, too, are forging partnerships with their vibrant arts and cultural resources to infuse the schools with rich comprehensive, sustainable programs -- not add-ons that come and go with this year's budget or administrator.
In Arizona, Tom Horne, the state superintendant of public instruction, made it his goal to provide high-quality, comprehensive arts education to all K-12 students. Horne, a classically trained pianist and founder of the Phoenix Baroque Ensemble, hasn't yet achieved his objective, but he has made progress: He pushed through higher standards for arts education, appointed an arts specialist in the state Department of Education, and steered $4 million in federal funds under NCLB to support arts integration in schools throughout the state. Some have restored art and music after a decade without them.
"When you think about the purposes of education, there are three," Horne says. "We're preparing kids for jobs. We're preparing them to be citizens. And we're teaching them to be human beings who can enjoy the deeper forms of beauty. The third is as important as the other two."
Fran Smith is a contributing editor for Edutopia.
Website created by: Dustin Coleman
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What Chief Executives Really Want [CREATIVITY!]
by Frank Kern
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
provided by: Business Week
A survey from IBM's Institute for Business Value shows that CEOs value one leadership competency above all others. Can you guess what it is?
What do chief executive officers really want? The answer bears important consequences for management as well as companies' customers and shareholders. The qualities that a CEO values most in the company team set a standard that affects everything from product development and sales to the long-term success of an enterprise.
There is compelling new evidence that CEOs' priorities in this area are changing in important ways. According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM's Institute for Business Value (NYSE: IBM - News), CEOs identify "creativity" as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.
That's creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude. It is consistent with the study's other major finding: Global complexity is the foremost issue confronting these CEOs and their enterprises. The chief executives see a large gap between the level of complexity coming at them and their confidence that their enterprises are equipped to deal with it.
Until now creativity has generally been viewed as fuel for the engines of research or product development, not the essential leadership asset that must permeate an enterprise.
Needed: Creative Disruption
Much has happened in the past two years to shake the historical assumptions held by the women and men who are in charge. In addition to global recession, the century's first decade heightened awareness of the issues surrounding global climate change and the interplay between natural events and our supply chains for materials, food, and even talent. In short, CEOs have experienced the realities of global integration. The world is massively interconnected—economically, socially, and politically—and operating as a system of systems. So what does this look like at the level of customer relationships? For too many enterprises, the answer is that their customers are increasingly connected, but not to them.
Against that backdrop of interconnection, interdependency, and complexity, business leaders around the world are declaring that success requires fresh thinking and continuous innovation at all levels of the organization. As they step back and reassess, CEOs have seized upon creativity as the necessary element for enterprises that must reinvent their customer relationships and achieve greater operational dexterity. In face-to-face interviews with our consultants, they said creative leaders do the following:
Disrupt the Status Quo. Every company has legacy products that are both cash—and sacred—cows. Often the need to perpetuate the success of these products restricts innovation within the enterprise, creating a window for competitors to advance competing innovations. As CEOs tell us that fully one-fifth of revenues will have to come from new sources, they are recognizing the requirement to break with existing assumptions, methods, and best practices.
Disrupt Existing Business Models. CEOs who select creativity as a leading competency are far more likely to pursue innovation through business model change. In keeping with their view of accelerating complexity, they are breaking with traditional strategy-planning cycles in favor of continuous, rapid-fire shifts and adjustments to their business models.
Disrupt Organizational Paralysis. Creative leaders fight the institutional urge to wait for completeness, clarity, and stability before making decisions. To do this takes a combination of deeply held values, vision, and conviction—combined with the application of such tools as analytics to the historic explosion of information. These drive decisionmaking that is faster, more precise, and even more predictable.
Taken together, these recommendations describe a shift toward corporate cultures that are far more transparent and entrepreneurial. They are cultures imbued with the belief that complexity poses an opportunity, rather than a threat. They hold that risk is to be managed, not avoided, and that leaders will be rewarded for their ability to build creative enterprises with fluid business models, not absolute ones. Something significant is afoot in the corporate world. In response to powerful external pressures and the opportunities that accompany them, CEOs are signaling a new direction. They are telling us that a world of increasing complexity will give rise to a new generation of leaders that make creativity the path forward for successful enterprises.
Frank Kern is senior vice-president of IBM Global Business Services.
by Frank Kern
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
provided by: Business Week
A survey from IBM's Institute for Business Value shows that CEOs value one leadership competency above all others. Can you guess what it is?
What do chief executive officers really want? The answer bears important consequences for management as well as companies' customers and shareholders. The qualities that a CEO values most in the company team set a standard that affects everything from product development and sales to the long-term success of an enterprise.
There is compelling new evidence that CEOs' priorities in this area are changing in important ways. According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM's Institute for Business Value (NYSE: IBM - News), CEOs identify "creativity" as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.
That's creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude. It is consistent with the study's other major finding: Global complexity is the foremost issue confronting these CEOs and their enterprises. The chief executives see a large gap between the level of complexity coming at them and their confidence that their enterprises are equipped to deal with it.
Until now creativity has generally been viewed as fuel for the engines of research or product development, not the essential leadership asset that must permeate an enterprise.
Needed: Creative Disruption
Much has happened in the past two years to shake the historical assumptions held by the women and men who are in charge. In addition to global recession, the century's first decade heightened awareness of the issues surrounding global climate change and the interplay between natural events and our supply chains for materials, food, and even talent. In short, CEOs have experienced the realities of global integration. The world is massively interconnected—economically, socially, and politically—and operating as a system of systems. So what does this look like at the level of customer relationships? For too many enterprises, the answer is that their customers are increasingly connected, but not to them.
Against that backdrop of interconnection, interdependency, and complexity, business leaders around the world are declaring that success requires fresh thinking and continuous innovation at all levels of the organization. As they step back and reassess, CEOs have seized upon creativity as the necessary element for enterprises that must reinvent their customer relationships and achieve greater operational dexterity. In face-to-face interviews with our consultants, they said creative leaders do the following:
Disrupt the Status Quo. Every company has legacy products that are both cash—and sacred—cows. Often the need to perpetuate the success of these products restricts innovation within the enterprise, creating a window for competitors to advance competing innovations. As CEOs tell us that fully one-fifth of revenues will have to come from new sources, they are recognizing the requirement to break with existing assumptions, methods, and best practices.
Disrupt Existing Business Models. CEOs who select creativity as a leading competency are far more likely to pursue innovation through business model change. In keeping with their view of accelerating complexity, they are breaking with traditional strategy-planning cycles in favor of continuous, rapid-fire shifts and adjustments to their business models.
Disrupt Organizational Paralysis. Creative leaders fight the institutional urge to wait for completeness, clarity, and stability before making decisions. To do this takes a combination of deeply held values, vision, and conviction—combined with the application of such tools as analytics to the historic explosion of information. These drive decisionmaking that is faster, more precise, and even more predictable.
Taken together, these recommendations describe a shift toward corporate cultures that are far more transparent and entrepreneurial. They are cultures imbued with the belief that complexity poses an opportunity, rather than a threat. They hold that risk is to be managed, not avoided, and that leaders will be rewarded for their ability to build creative enterprises with fluid business models, not absolute ones. Something significant is afoot in the corporate world. In response to powerful external pressures and the opportunities that accompany them, CEOs are signaling a new direction. They are telling us that a world of increasing complexity will give rise to a new generation of leaders that make creativity the path forward for successful enterprises.
Frank Kern is senior vice-president of IBM Global Business Services.