Happy Retirement

Maine is fortunate to have such marvelous arts educators!

We know that what a teacher offers can have an enormous impact on student development day to day AND over their lifetime. As educators retire at the close of another school year, 2018-2019, I invite you to join me in THANKING them for their years of service and dedication to students across the state.

I certainly appreciate your commitment and I wish each of you a healthy retirement and many, many years of laughter and love! Yahooooooo!

The following visual and performing educators have contributed a combined 371+ years to teaching visual and/or performing arts education!

• ANGELIKA BLANCHARD, Manchester School and Windham Primary, Visual Arts
• DAWN BODEN, RSU#3 Unity/Thorndike, Elementary Music, 35 years
• JOY DREW, Wentworth School, Scarborough, Music, 27 years
• VICKY MORGAN-FICKETT, York Middle School, Visual Arts, 15 years
• MARY GANNAWAY, Elementary Music, Sanford, 43 years
• SUE NELSON, Elementary Music, 21 years
• NANCY NEUBERT, Sanford Junior High School, General Music and Chorus, 39 years
• WENDY SCHLOTTERBECK, Leavitt Area High School, Visual Arts, 34 years
• CAROL SLADE, SAD #17, Elementary Visual Arts, 20 years
• BONNIE TAYLOR, K-4 Falmouth, Visual Arts, 23 years
• RICK OSANN, Bonny Eagle High School, Theatre and Visual Arts, 15 years
• LISA MARIN, PreK-12 Moosabec Community School District and Union #103, Gifted and Talented Coordinator and Visual Arts, 23 years
• JIM SMALL, Madison High School, Visual Arts, 38 years
• VANESSA WHITE-CAPELLUTI, Wells High School, Visual Arts, 38 years

If you  know of a teacher who is not on this list please be sure and email me at meartsed@gmail.com with the information and I’d be glad to add them. Thanks!

MICA – Day 2

A day filled with GREATNESS

Kaitlin Young in the Idea Lab

The Maine International Conference on the Arts (MICA) wrapped up yesterday with a very full and high spirited, exciting day. The day started with a lively performance by the Maine Taiko Drummers. The Maine Artists Idea Lab stories followed in Hannaford Hall reaching across the many “arts” lines and inspiring folks bringing many to tears.

One of the Idea Lab presenters was Sedomocha School Music Educator Kaitlin Young (Maine 2018 Teacher of the Year) who shared her “teacher” story and reminded me of the importance of “life-long learning”! All of us who call ourselves “educators” can be proud that Kaitlin represents Maine educators who are continuously striving to provide an excellent education for all learners!

The day was filled with breakout sessions on a variety of topics relating to the Maine Arts Commission (MAC) Cultural Plan – Leveraging Investment, Building Capacity, Visibility of Arts & Cultural Sector, Arts Education & Lifelong Learning, and Promoting Cultural Tourism.

Teaching, learning, and assessment panel

Just before lunch Arts EngageME presented their Inaugural Maine Arts Awards to the surprised recipients. Throughout the day there were pop-up performers including Sara Juli, Oratorio Chorale, Portland Piano Trio, Celebration Barn, Golden Oak, and MAMM students.

The PK-12 arts education sessions were informative, enlightening, and inspirational. Thank you to the following who contributed their expertise to the sessions designed especially for educators.

How do teaching, learning and assessment work together in a positive, productive standards-based Visual and Performing Arts classroom? 

Jeff Beaudry, Jen Etter, Kelly Hrenko, Michelle Kaschub, Holly Leighton, and John Morris!

Teaching artists and PK-12 arts teachers session

When Teaching Artists and Arts Teachers Connect, Students Win

Kate Smith, Brian Evans-Jones, Kris Bisson, Tim Christensen, Lori Spruce, John Morris, Carmel Collins

Empowering Your Voice for Arts Education 

Catherine Ring

MAC provides MICA biennially so if you missed it this year mark your calendar for the next one being held in 2020. It will be a great way to celebrate the Bicentennial of our state.

Catherine Ring presenting

Some of the MALI folks in attendance

MALI Teacher Leader Story: Cindi Kugell

Visual Art Educator

This is the first of several blog posts in 2018 that include stories of the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative (MALI) Phase 7 Teacher Leaders and Teaching Artist Leaders. This series includes a set of questions so you can learn a little bit about each leader. CLICK HERE  for more information on MALI. CLICK HERE  for more information on the 93 Teacher Leaders and 8 Teaching Artist Leaders.  CLICK HERE  for Arts education resources. CLICK HERE  for the MALI Resource Bank. Search in the “search archives” box on the bottom right side of this post for past teacher leader stories.  Thank you Cindi for sharing your story!

Cindi Kugell is currently teaching High School Visual arts. She was fortunate to find an open teaching position just after graduating from the University of Maine Orono and has been happily teaching art for the past 28 years. Cindi’s first teaching assignment was in SAD#58 teaching at 2 K8 schools. In 1998 my husband, 2 young children and I moved to Oxford and started teaching in SAD#17 in the Oxford Hills K6. In 2000 we added a third child to our tribe and our family was complete. Fast forward to 2010 and a position opened at our high school. I made another move to Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School to teach darkroom photography and introductory Art 1 courses. Over the past 8 years I’ve added Adaptive Arts, Drama, Yearbook, Advanced Photography, and Studio Art History to my teaching load and have taken on the roll of K12 Visual Art department chair. I am also the Yearbook advisor and Lead teacher for our Project Graduation group. I like to stay busy!

What do you like best about being an art educator?

What are the positives of having the best job EVAH!? At the K-8 level one of the “bests” was getting to see EVERY student in the school and building lasting relations with them over time – year after year after year! Most teachers don’t get the opportunity to really know their students (and their families) as they grow up. My first year teaching at the high school level I had the unique opportunity to have Seniors in my classes that I had first 13 years previous as Kindergarten students, nothing is cooler than that! I love my job, there isn’t anything that I’d rather be doing. Who wouldn’t love the celebrity status that comes with knowing so many students, building positive relationships with them and their families, building skills in talented children and getting to play with art materials all day while teaching a subject that you love?!

What do you believe are three keys to ANY successful visual and performing arts education?

I think that one of the biggest ways that arts educators can offer their students success in the arts is in the way or the “how” that they present problems to their students. If students feel confident and non-threatened in by the process of creating and realize that there are multiple solutions to problems they feel free to flourish. Releasing students from the fear of being wrong is a great part of a successful program. Another way that

Teachers can foster success in their programs is by letting their students know that skill in the arts can be increased just as math, English or any other core subject can be build upon. By letting them know that it’s your job (and your pleasure!) to help them get better and grow as an art student, you can relieve some of the pressure they may feel while in your classroom. Meeting student where they are and moving them forward is the job of all educators, some of us just get to have more fun with the supplies that they use to get students to their best! A well rounded education is important to student success. So are the skills of creative problem solving and critical thinking. The arts are a fantastic, hands on way of fostering those skills in students. I’m fortunate in my district to be very well supported in what I do and how I teach. Teachers and administration see the value of a well rounded education and the roll that the arts play in student success.

How have you found assessment to be helpful to you in your classroom?

My current jam in the world of assessment and reporting is a single point universal project rubric. This style of rubric has only the descriptors for the proficient level of achievement listed down the center. To the left is a box that I can write descriptive feedback to my students on what needs improvement or isn’t going well and to the right there is an area that I can write things that were amazing or outstanding in their project. Kids love the comments and the opportunity to go back and make adjustments to their work. It takes a long time to assess this way, but as it’s a universal rubric for all projects there is a clarity for students as they navigate through work in the art room.

What have been the benefits in becoming involved in the Maine Arts Leadership initiative? I think the biggest benefit for me is the networking with other teachers. It’s easy to become comfortable on your own little teaching Island and get stuck in a pattern or “the same old”. Learning new things, meeting others that share your discipline and making those colleague connections helps to keep things fresh and inspiring in teaching for me and for my students.

What are you most proud of in your career? The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I had my own 3 children in my classroom K12. When they were in Elementary I taught at their schools and when I made the transition to the High School level I had them there as well. It’s a unique opportunity to see your own children as learners and know that they are great people! They also have given me great feedback on my lessons, organization and classroom routines that have been very reaffirming. Nobody is more critical than your own children on the crazy things you do to inspire students! I’m proud of my 28 years in art education and proud of the great students (and children!) that I’ve raised during my career.

What gets in the way of being a better teacher or doing a better job as a teacher? I think the age old comment of “time” is the biggest obstacle in becoming a better teacher. It takes a huge amount of the stuff to do your job well. Staying current with educational practices in this ever changing landscape can be exhausting. Pair that with extra curricular activities, leadership roles, teaching, parenting and family life and you’ve got a full 24 hours in each day – oh, and try to rest up in there as well!

What have you accomplished through hard work and determination that might otherwise appear at first glance to be due to “luck” or circumstances? Starting in this district as a part time elementary art teacher, moving to full time elementary then stepping up to the High School level and finally ending up as the leader of our K12 art department has taken a fair amount of hard work and determination. I wouldn’t change a thing and can’t thank my colleagues enough for their support and hard work this year. It’s amazing to work with such a great team of educators and I’m thankful for that everyday!

Look into your crystal ball: what advice would you give to teachers? Get your masters while you are young and never stop taking courses or PD to improve your teaching skills. As educators we need to keep learning just as we expect our students to learn from us. Stay current, advocate for yourself and your program and LOVE what you do.

If you were given a $500,000.00 to do with whatever you please, what would it be? Education is so grossly underfunded that I can think of a plethora of activities, programs and equipment that would be amazing to add to our district. I think the most pressing issue that I’d apply the funds to would be to increase the base pay of our new young teachers to entice them into the profession. I know teaching isn’t all about the money and has it’s own rewards, but we need new qualified educators in our field and we need to validate the importance of the profession and celebrate it accordingly.

Imagine you are 94 years old. You’re looking back. Do you have any regrets? I have truly enjoyed my career. My only regret is in not continuing my education by getting my masters. I’m working on it now, but do wish that I’d taken that step earlier. I can remember starting out as a new teacher and thinking to myself “I’ll do this for 5 years or so then change to something else”. Well, 28 years later I’m still here and loving every minute of it! Every day is a great day to learn something new and my students teach me something new every day.

NEW Resource Bank Unveiled

Awesome resources for you!

NEWS FLASH

Last week at the Statewide Biennial conference at the Point Lookout Conference Center one of the exciting announcements that took place was the unveiling of the MALI (Maine Arts Leadership Initiative) Resource Bank. This is the second year in a row that funds have been provided by the Maine Arts Commission to create resources that are useful to all arts educators.

The resources are located at http://www.maineartsedresources.org/

WHAT YOU’LL FIND on the RESOURCE BANK

• During the 2013-14 school year the MALI Resource Team created a template that was used for the team to create resources. You can download it from the site and use them yourself.
• A searchable data base that includes resources for the following categories: Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theater Arts, Visual Art, Creativity, and Student Voices.
• The Maine Learning Results Standards document
• Pictures and links to the contributors so you can communicate with them if you’d like to
• A bit of the history

All of us at MALI are very excited about the Resource Bank and hope that you find it useful. We encourage you to take some time on the webpage to search topics. Certainly they can be used ‘as is’, or you can adapt or adopt them, as is.

A great big thank you to Catherine Ring and Barbara Vinal for working closely with the Teacher Leaders who were part of the Resource Bank team and to create the searchable website!

Thank you to the Maine Department of Education for the funding to create the website!

Please note: On August 3, 2015, MAAI, the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative, announced its new name, MALI, the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative. MALI is a program of the Maine Arts Commission. You can read about it at https://meartsed.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/maai-goes-to-mali/. Please email Argy Nestor if you have any questions at argy.nestor@maine.gov.

Arts Ed in Other States

Learning opportunities in other states

• N.C. school infuses all subjects with the arts
  The School for Creative Studies, a Durham, N.C., magnet school for students in sixth to ninth grades, infuses the arts and design program into its core subjects. Students may spend their elective classes creating dance steps and writing songs for music videos, and may write a novel in social-studies class or compose an essay explaining a solution in math class. Principal Renee Price praised the creativity of the school’s teachers, each of whom are certified in their subject areas. The Durham News (N.C.) (12/11)
• Students create illustrated children’s books about geometry
  Some students at a high school in New Jersey are creating illustrated children’s books about geometry concepts. The school has been using the project to teach geometry for the past decade, and in recent years began sharing the stories with younger students. This year, one group of students created a book titled “Goldi-blocks and the Three Little Pigs.” Tri-Town News (Freehold, N.J.) (1/23)
• Middle-schoolers make music videos about algebra
  Eighth-graders studying algebra at a middle school in Texas learned about algebra concepts, such as the coordinate plane, by producing music videos. Students worked collaboratively for a semester to create the lyrics and make the videos. “We basically wrote down the real lyrics to the song and then looked in our math books and substituted what we found there for the words,” student Isabel Arevalo said. Austin American-Statesman (Texas) (free content) (12/25)
• How some Mich. schools approach arts education
  Students in Michigan are required to learn about dance, visual art, music and theater, but how schools meet this requirement varies widely. While budget trouble has put pressure on arts education in some districts, Ann Arbor Public Schools offers students a variety of arts courses and has the equivalent of more than 100 full-time arts teachers. MLive.com (Michigan) (free registration) (12/22)
• How the arts can engage students to meet common core goals
  The arts can help teachers engage students and spark the passion necessary for them to succeed under the Common Core State Standards, according to Courtney J. Boddie, director of education/school engagement at The New Victory Theater. In this blog post, Boddie uses the example of “Sleeping Beauty” to show how theater techniques and skills can be used in an elementary-school literature lesson that aligns with the common core. Edutopia.org/Courtney J. Boddie’s blog
• New Jersey Adds Arts to School-Performance ReportsNew Jersey now includes metrics about arts education in its annual school reports—and education officials there say that makes it the first state to do so.

The Impact of Music on Verbal Intelligence

Reseach on the impact on young children

A recent study showed the growth of preschool children using interactive computerized training programs. Verbal intelligence was measured and 90% of the students showed improvement. The researchers findings included “that these improvements in verbal intelligence were positively correlated with changes in functional brain plasticity during an executive-function task.” Their findings demonstrate that “transfer of a high-level cognitive skill is possible in early childhood.”

The co-author of the report, York University psychologist Ellen Blaystok said: “These results are dramatic not only because they clearly connect cognitive improvement to musical training, but also because the improvements in language and attention are found in completely different domains than the one used for training”.

You can learn more by clicking here.