Blog post written by Anthony Mullen
Recently I had an email exchange with Anthony Mullen, the 2009 National Teacher of the Year. Anthony teaches high school students at The ARCH School, an alternative education branch of Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Arts educators sense when someone really “gets” the arts. Mr. Mullen said in his email: “Art lies at the core of all learning because content knowledge without creativity and imagination is meaningless. Art transcends cognition because it inspires passion, and passion inspires all that we create. I have spoken to people who do not believe that art contributes to EVERYTHING we are and have been and will become, and most leave with a different point of view. Thank you for all that you do to inspire creativity!”
I took a few minutes to read a post Mr. Mullen had written recently for the Jose Luis Vilson blog. Mr. Vilson is a math educator, blogger, speaker, and activist in New York City. He has written and spoken about education, math, and race for a number of organizations. Periodically he has guest bloggers and Mr. Mullen’s post entitled Beautiful Bytes of Data. The beginning of the post is below and the entire post is located at http://thejosevilson.com/beautiful-bytes-data/. Please take a few minutes and click through so you can read the entire post and be sure and read the comments as well!
The young man wearing blue jeans and a red and white polo shirt is anxious. He frequently looks at his watch, shaking his head while staring at the train tracks. He is restless and angry and impatient because the train is late again. He bends over and grabs a handful of gravel, throwing the shattered stone against a pair of cold steel rails. A few commuters standing on the train platform watch, quietly wondering why the young man is so upset. It is, after all, a bright and sunny afternoon. A solitary businessman wearing a Brooks Brothers suit is too busy texting to notice anything.
me arts ed 