Amy: “I thought, how can I help teach more compassion and empathy and love? There must be a way to do that through music.
Photograph by Ben McCanna
Biddeford Middle School music educator Amy Delorge is changing the way she teaches in response to what she’s observed since the recent election. She’s teaching students about social justice. In the spring, the school’s 120 band students will learn, through music, about the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II, Delorge said. She was led to that decision, she said, by the recent turmoil surrounding the presidential campaign and a film she saw at an Asian-American film festival last summer.
Congratulations goes to Amy as one of 25 semifinalists nationwide for a “music educator of the year” award given by Music & Arts, a nationwide retailer of band and orchestra equipment. The winner will be named Dec. 15.
To read the entire article from the Portland Press Herald, written by Noel K. Gallagher, please CLICK HERE.
We’ve just learned that funding is once again available for the Maine Arts Commission Ticket to Ride program. If you are unfamiliar with the program below is the information.
For two weeks this month, Tim Christensen was a visiting artist in Holly Houston’s high school visual art classes at Yarmouth High School. In Advanced Placement Art (AP), Advanced Drawing and Painting (ADP), Ceramics I, and Art Fundamentals, Tim and Holly have led the students through a project documenting the systems around endangered United States animals, from beluga whales to ocelots, from Key deer to orcas. As well, most days after hours, the art room has been open to students from the entire school to come learn to work on the potter’s wheel independently, creating a busy and vibrant creative space where students could start to find new uses for their creative voice.
Three approaches were used with the art classes. AP and ADP worked with8x8 clay slabs, creating a visual design capable of communicating the facts and challenges discovered during their research into their animal. These designs were etched onto black slip on white porcelain, using the sgraffito method, a 6000 year old practice traditionally used to create culturally vital historical documents in a visual way.
Similarly, Art Fundamentals created hollow bodied sculptures of their organism, and covered their sculpture with their interpretation of vital biological system data related to their animal.
Combining the challenges of working with clay and sgraffito with a subject of personal interest and relevancy fosters an investment in the work, and allows students to overcome big challenges, finding multiple correct ways of communicating and creating. Students assisted in defining the assessable goals of the project, and have been able to gauge their progress through formative self-assessment by understanding the proficiencies they must demonstrate in the execution of the project. How they show those proficiencies is up to them.
When Holly and Tim work together in the classroom, they communicate beforehand about the tasks that will be demonstrated and skills introduced for each class session, and share observations or areas of concern or elation for each incoming group of artists. During the session, they address issues and answer questions, provide encouragement or demonstrate techniques, often referring the other to students in need of a little extra attention. As a team, they are able to bring a broad range of experiences and skills to bear, and the students benefit from having multiple perspectives on the challenges they are tasked with meeting.
The first Maine Arts Leadership Initiative (MALI) Regional conference took place yesterday at Ellsworth High School. The participants were appreciative of the opportunity, not just to attend and learn in the formal sessions, but to have the chance to network with other arts educators.
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