Home : Blog

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Steve Jobs Knew About Arts in Education


From a great Huffington Post article by Inderpal Grewal entitled "A Lesson From Steve Jobs: Arts and Technology Education Are Related" about Steve Jobs and how his expertise in calligraphy taught him about innovation and the benefits of arts in education:
Calligraphy is both aesthetic and technical and these two facets cannot be separated. It is also a lesson in history, where Chinese scrolls, Islamic arts and the Illuminated manuscripts of the European Middle Ages can all be examined together. It provides a history of power of religion, monarchies and of communication and technologies at different periods of time. It also suggests that laborious and meticulous writing has its pleasures and can also be used as innovation. For Jobs, it was in his recollection of the Calligraphy course in his commencement address that made the difference that marked the Mac from other computers, and this difference was what millions of people and consumers‹appreciated. . . .
Humanities and arts cannot be pigeonholed as unnecessary or extra, as luxuries that we cannot afford now, as simply being about pleasure rather than about productivity. They are central to innovation, and to separate these is to the detriment of all of us.



Tuesday, October 11, 2011

School Leaders Share Findings From Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grants

Two high-need school districts in Jersey City, NJ and Long Beach, CA shared their findings regarding integrating the arts into the core curriculum at an April 6th Education Policy Briefing at the U.S. Department of Education. Read their stories and successes here:

http://www.ed.gov/oii-news/oii-arts-integration-grantees-share-evidence-effectiveness

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

U.S. Department of Education Article on Arts Integration


The USDOE Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) released a feature online article this month entitled "‘It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again’ for Arts Integration.”

The article is a brief look at the research, resources, programs and initiatives in arts integration that have evolved in the 34 years since a national panel convened by David Rockefeller Jr. issued its 1977 report Coming to Our Senses: The Significance of the Arts for American Education.

The article compares and contrasts the findings from the 1977 report with those presented in the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities’ 2011 report Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools.