Student Arts Collaborative

MAAE Facebook – open letter from Susan Potters, Executive Director

We are happy to announce that MAAE’s group Facebook page is now the MAAE Student Arts Collaborative, a place where Maine high school students involved in the arts (any of the arts) can share their work, their thoughts and their questions – with each other, with college arts students and with Maine post-grads already pursuing careers in the arts.

We see this as a place where young artists will find support, encouragement, information and frank advice from their fellow students and from those who have walked the same path before them.

The page will not only be for young artists, but also managed by them. The logo was designed by high school artist Piper Smith, a junior at Traip Academy in Kittery. The other two managers of the page are Zachary Fisher, a UMaine Orono freshman, studying choral music and Meredith Crawford, 28, who grew up in Veazie, Maine, and who is now a professional violist in Los Angeles.

Please help us to spread the word!
Encourage the young artists you teach or know to join the group by directing them to either the Facebook group (MAAE Student Arts Collaborative) or to the Facebook link on our website, http://www.maineartsed.org. We’ll help you by sending you a hand-out of that info for your students. That hand-out, written by Zachary, will come in a group email to you tomorrow.

And here below is a message to you from our post-grad manager, Meredith, about what the Student Arts Collaborative would have meant to her growing up as an “artsy kid” in Maine.

Message from Meredith
“As a professional musician who studied the violin since the age of five, I know very well that the arts can been a lonely – albeit immensely gratifying – road. For  a lot of Maine students, small communities can be a blessing and a curse. While I appreciated growing up in a small town, it was also difficult for me to feel like I was the only kid who was “into” music. In the already difficult period of middle/high school, having one more thing that makes you different from your peers can be a burden. Although I was lucky enough to have friends and family who supported me, it was still difficult not to feel isolated; at times it was tempting to put music aside, much as I loved it, simply to feel more part of the community.

I am so glad I made the decision to keep at it. It has not only become my livelihood, but a source of immeasurable joy and fulfillment in my life. I can guarantee, however, that something like the MAAE Student Arts Collaborative would have made that decision a thousand times easier had it existed when I was in high school.

There are few things more gratifying – or important – to a young artist than to have a place to share their work with others and to be able to view and appreciate others’ work as well – in essence, to feel like you’re part of a group of like-minded individuals – especially a group of your peers. The MAAE Student Arts Collaborative seeks to create a space for just that – a Facebook group where current high school and college students can post their art, a snippet of a creative writing project, videos of dance or music performances or compositions, or even works-in-progress, as well as a place to ask each other questions, give feedback, or just say, ‘Wow, I really like what you’ve made – tell me more about it.’

Students joining the collaborative will also have a place to learn from recent college grads who grew up in Maine and now work in the arts – people like me, who want to encourage young Maine artists and let them know their art is important, that it should be shared, and that it can take you to amazing places. I look forward to what’s in store for the MAAE Student Arts Collaborative, and hope that you will help us spread the work about this wonderful new resource – the more students who join and share their work, the stronger the support system will be.”

Thanks again for your help!… and stay tuned for tomorrow’s hand-out for your students.

Communication

Maine Arts Education

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had started to post to the Maine Arts Education Facebook page on a regular basis. This happened partially because I had so much content that I couldn’t put it out there fast enough on the Maine Arts Education blog. At the end of the day yesterday I realized that I had posted 12 items to Facebook, yesterday alone. The format provides me the opportunity to get information out to you more quickly. In addition, the blog posts from here automatically go to Facebook and to Twitter. On Facebook, look for Maine Arts Education and on Twitter, meartsed.

Some of you may not know that you can subscribe to the blog by going to the bottom right hand corner of this page and click on “Sign me up!” and join the other 1,057 who automatically receive the blog posts as soon as they are posted with a message to your email.

Along with Facebook, Twitter, and Maine Arts Ed blog, you can also email me at argy.nestor@maine.gov and request that you receive the Tuesday morning emails. I will add you to the Maine Arts Education list-serv that the Maine Arts Commission provides. There are many opportunities, a plethora of information, and recent research being posted, that I want to make sure you are aware of.  And, if you come across information that you think others would like to learn about, please be sure and forward it to me and I’d be glad to share it with the field.

Many of you have heard me say that “none of us is as smart as all of us”. Sharing information and communication provides us multiple opportunities to collaborate and raise the standards for what we are doing. Thanks so much for sharing and communicating!

If you have any suggestions or questions, please be sure and contact me!

 

Maine Arts Ed on Facebook

It is time for a change, or perhaps I should call this an addition to the opportunities provided for communicating about arts education. I am pleased to announce that Maine Arts Education is now on Facebook. That is correct, I invite you to go to Facebook, and join the conversation. Find us at MEArtsEducation at https://www.facebook.com/MEArtsEducation.

History

I am sure that many of you remember when we didn’t have an electronic Maine arts education community. The list-serv was established in the winter of 2007 with 350 email addresses as a follow-up to a survey. One email address at a time the list has grown to almost 1200 addresses. Those on the list-serv receive an email each Tuesday morning. Every day a post is made on the blog on a variety of topics. In fact, as of today there are 1,720 posts. And, each week there are about 1200 visitors to the blog. Each post is forwarded to twitter and to facebook. This allows you the opportunity to read/follow meartsed on twitter and/or Facebook. If you are a visitor to Facebook, I Invite you to go there and follow Maine Arts Education. You can also click on the Facebook button on the top right side of the front page of the blog or click on Twitter, Email or Facebook at the bottom of the blog to send it to your accounts. Also, you can click on “like” at the bottom of each post.

Thank you for spreading the information that is posted on the blog. And, thanks for visiting the Maine Arts Education Facebook page and joining the arts education conversation!

Summer Reading, Watching, Listening, and Learning

Points of interest wrapped up in one blog post

The information in this blog has come across my desk from a variety of sources and people. I have rolled it into one post to make reference easier for you… I am guessing there is at least one story here that will peak your interest.

• A 5 minute+ film about John Baldessari created by Tom Waits. He is recognized for his height 6′ 7″ and his white beard and hair.  He is been called the Godfather of conceptual artist, surrealistic for the digital age. He has had over 200 solo shows, and 1000 group shows and has received many awards. You can learn more about him and watch the entertaining 5 minutes and 55 second video by clicking here. John has a great website as well – http://www.baldessari.org/.
• While looking at the Baldessari film I discovered the website called Short of the Week which contains links to short videos. The topics are varied. This might come in useful as a resource for you and/or your students.
• Thanks to MAAI teacher leader, music teacher at Aetna-Dixmont Jen Nash who sent me this info. I talked to Kern Kelley, who is the technology integrator for us. He shared this blogspot link with me and in her words: “The students picked a piece of art and had to put a video together. They had to talk about the different aspects of the piece of artwork and incorporate music. I thought that this would be neat to share.”
• Will Richardson is one of those people who I find very interesting. He encourages me to think differently about school. This is a TEDx where he talks about young people and learning and starts out by referencing his daughter playing the piano.     
• Eight schools across the country were selected to receive over $14.7 over a three year period to integrate dance, music, theater, and visual arts into the curricula. The President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities working with the US Department of Education hopes to prove that failing schools can be impacted by encouraging the expansion of creative expression. Public Radio has an interview that you can listen to by clicking here. And you can read more about the Turnaround Arts Initiative.
• Not to long after I posted Eagles Have Landed about Suzanne Goulet’s art classroom at Waterville High School being the center of the viewing stage for the new born eagles someone sent me this video of young robins.
• Mystery of a Masterpiece was aired on Public Television in January 2012 and tells the story of a painting that was sold for $20,000 in October of 2007 and now is thought to be a Leonardo da Vinci worth more than $100 million. Cutting-edge imaging analysis solves the mystery. You can watch the 52 min. program by clicking here. Thanks to Wiscasset Middle School art teacher Molly Carlson for sharing this information.
• Playing for Change Day – changing the world through music. All over the world on September 22nd there will be people collaborating to inspire people to support music education. Portland is one of the locations, planned by the Maine Academy for Modern Music, and it will happen at 8:00-11:30 PM.
• The photographs are amazing! Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography at the Bates College Museum of Art provides local teachers a FREE resource to explore a meeting point of art and science. 36 photographers from around the world are included in one of the very first exhibitions to examine astrophotography as a fine art genre. Starstruck opened June 8 and will be on view through December 15, offering ample opportunity for science and art teachers to plug in. Companion shows at the Bates planetarium are an option. To learn more or to schedule a tour, contact ashostak@bates.edu or cjones5@bates.edu. A full color catalogue with essays by the jurors is available.

ARTICLES

• How and why a middle school teacher approached collaborative learning in his classroom from Education Week, May 30, 2012, written by Rob Kriete called No More Whack-A-Mole: My Conversion to Collaborative Learning.
• How are you doing incorporating technology into the arts classroom? This is an article on how one teacher tried twitter and facebook and what they found. Published online in Education Week, May 30, 2012, written by Paul Barnwell called Why Twitter and Facebook Are Not Good Instructional Tools.
• If you are out traveling this summer and happen to be in Kansas you might want to drop by the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Read about the recent inductees (5 each year) in this Ed Week article from May 14, 2012 written by John Wilson called National Teachers Hall of Fame is a Gift.
• Grade the Work, Not the Behavior. Not sure if that is language you’ve been hearing or not in your school but it is being discussed across the state in many schools. And that is what this article with that title is all about. From Education Week, May 8, 2012, written by Cindi Rigsbee.
• This article called Curriculum the Missing Ingredient in School Reform, Book Says reviews a book just out argues that the part that is being left out of the reform conversation these days is the curriculum. The book called Tyranny of the Textbook: An Insider Exposes How Educational Material Undermine Reforms written by Beverlee Jobrack. Missing Piece published in Education Week, June 14, 2012 and written by Erik Robelen.
• Read about what teachers are saying on specific topics for professional development in the Education Week article called Roundup Post: Characteristics of Meaningful PD, June 4, 2012, written by Leanne Link. Be sure and check out the discussion topics on the right side of the webpage that has the article.
• Travels in Education
• Study: Teacher PD Needs More on Emotions
• Shifting Assumptions About Teacher Evaluation and Professional Learning
• Let Teachers Take Charge of Their Learning