Know that there is nothing mystical here. It is not my mission to teach what my friend +Christine Claire Reed calls "Woo Woo." You all know what I'm talking about.
It is simply my mission to help children learn academic success but also emotional and social success, as well.
It is my hope that I can help many children live BOLDLY, by listening to an inner guiding voice. It is my hope they do not allow fear to paralyze them at an early age. So many of us live our lives feeling we make so many "mistakes," when often our greatest mistake in life is not living at all, because we live in fear. "We will never be good enough," "we could never do something like that for fear of what others think of us, and" BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
So it is in this light I am here working with children and studying teaching in our current state of affairs. I believe that aesthetic education --or the development of these soft skills--such as character, social, and emotional learning is just as important as academic learning.
*For those of you who like hard cold, scientific proof, there is a lot of research out there which suggests that the arts enhance learning, not to mention the health and well-being of a student. See for yourself.*
I will leave you with this:
A physicist, Morton Tavel of Vassar College exclaims: "the future of the sciences is dependent on the arts."
Much Peace,
MEGAN
YES! Without the arts, we have no soul. In trauma research, what's really amazing (yet should not shock us...) is that it's the ARTS that help the MOST. Theatre therapy, dance therapy...it all makes a much bigger/deeper difference than any "academic" approach, like talk therapy, does after many years!
ReplyDeleteI think it's sad that so many people are disconnected from the Arts and from themselves but it's societal. I agree with you; I think so many times we think the best way to remedy problems in our life, get through stress, etc. is THROUGH OUR BRAIN, through talking, which can sometimes help, but the healing power of the Arts, wow, look out.
ReplyDeleteI have learned so much about the mind-body-soul connections over the last several years. Thanks for bringing this up, especially for those of us who straddle academia and the arts!
I am looking forward to reading (and contributing) to this dialogue about education and the role of the arts!
ReplyDeleteAs you have already discovered, we share a love of Dewey. Dewey's work, along with the writings of others who have built upon his ideas (e.g., Eisner, Schon), has shaped my philosophy of teaching throughout the years and has informed my writing on topics related to language, literacy, and learning.
Some background into my thoughts on education and the arts can be found in two chapters from my book Making Meaning (published by Springer) that address multi-modal literacy through arts-based learning. You can get a preview of the chapters on these links:
Introduction:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-87539-2_1
Chapter 12:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-0-387-87539-2_13
I would be delighted to hear responses to the ideas that I present in these chapters and how my ideas relate to your thoughts and observations.