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Integrating the Arts into School Curricula
Posted by on July 29, 2011 at 4:55 PM EDTEd. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
I was honored to be one of the Champions of Change recognized by the President’s Council on the Arts and the Humanities during a roundtable discussion at the White House on July 19. The conversation an exceptional group of distinguished arts leaders and educators from around the nation had was a critical one, and the fact that it was held at the White House shows the nation the importance the administration places on the issue of arts integration in our schools.
Clearly, the degree to which we are able to successfully infuse the arts into the education of our nation’s children will go a long way toward the progress we are able to make in competing with nations around the world. As noted author Daniel Pink writes in his work, A Whole New Mind, “The first group of people who develop a whole new mind, who master high-concept and high-touch abilities, will do extremely well. The rest – those who move slowly or not at all – may miss out or, worse, suffer...This new age fairly glitters with opportunity, but it is as unkind to the slow of foot as it is to the rigid of mind.”
The challenge for all of us, I believe, is to find innovative ways to link our educational curriculum to the real-world experiences of our students. We must foster creativity, develop imagination, and enable students to envision alternative possibilities in problem solving.
Learn more about EducationEvery Child Deserves an Arts-Rich Education
Posted by on July 29, 2011 at 8:32 AM EDTEd. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
This past Tuesday I was honored to be among those selected as arts education Champions of Change and to have the opportunity to talk with Administration officials from the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education about the power of the arts to transform lives and ways to advance arts education.
Our group included school principals, arts education providers, and television and movie actors from the Creative Coalition, all of whom believe that a child’s education is not complete without the arts. We were greeted by Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, joined by Peter Cunningham, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Dept of Education, and our round table discussion was led by Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. (Don’t miss the 2011 PCAH report (PDF), Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools.)
Learn more about EducationMaking the Case for Arts Education
Posted by on July 28, 2011 at 5:27 PM EDTEd. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
First and foremost, I would like to thank the ultimate Champion of Change and author of creativity, God, for blessing me with this great honor and opportunity. Thank you to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and White House staff for being a gracious host and for facilitating this round table discussion on Arts Education in America with the U.S. Department of Education, and thank you to the leadership at Clark State Community College for their support of the arts as a catalyst for change.
I know the power of the arts firsthand. It was visual art, music and performance that helped me as a shy, reserved youth learn how to express myself and to gain the confidence to one day make a difference in other lives through the arts. Graciously dubbed a “Champion of Change” in arts education, I found myself at the White House surrounded by like-minded arts advocates that included fellow “non-profit arts warriors,” celebrity advocates from the Creative Coalition, the Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
Learn more about EducationWhite House Roundtable Meeting with Rural Leaders
Posted by on July 28, 2011 at 4:53 PM EDTEd. Note: Cross-posted from the USDA blog.
This week, I led a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House with leaders of a host of rural organizations to discuss the White House Rural Council. The White House Rural Council, which was established by President Obama on June 9, 2011, will build on this Administration’s unprecedented efforts to spur job creation and economic growth in rural America. Along with Jon Carson, the Director of the Office of Public Engagement and Doug McKalip of the White House Domestic Policy Council, we discussed the Council’s efforts to improve coordination among federal agencies. We focused in on ways to help better leverage existing federal resources in rural America – and on how to facilitate private-public partnerships that can move the needle in building stronger rural communities.
The meeting was a chance for me to listen to our rural partners on the issues that need to be addressed and discuss potential solutions. Some of the key issues raised included the need to coordinate more with our federal partners on health care, broadband, and other critical infrastructure; how to increase the availability of capital and lending to rural businesses and families; efforts to remove barriers to young and beginning farmers; and strategies for establishing better partnerships with states, tribes, local governments and the private sector. Many of the leaders gathered also expressed appreciation for the renewed focus on rural America and the importance the White House has placed on these issues.
Winning the Future by Supporting Local Innovation
Posted by on July 28, 2011 at 3:15 PM EDTToday, I was proud to announce that we are making $95 million available in Regional and Community Challenge grants to support local efforts to build more livable and sustainable communities that ensure that all Americans can afford to live in places with access to employment, schools and public transit options.
But that’s not all these efforts represent. They show that President Obama recognizes that in world where flexible workplaces win, where flexible minds win and where flexible economies win, communities need a flexible federal partner that’s responsive to local needs.
With this funding, we’re building on the $170 million in grants we awarded last fall with our partners from the Department of Transportation to offer a different kind of partnership to local communities. Rather than the “one-size-fits-all” rules and regulations that too often ignored the unique needs of every community and created barriers to growth, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is helping drive innovation at the local level and leveraging the public, private, and philanthropic investment communities need to thrive.
Learn more about Rural, Urban PolicyThe Arts Fortify Skills Essential to All Areas of Study
Posted by on July 27, 2011 at 7:01 PM EDTEd. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
I am so honored to be named a Champion of Change, especially because my organization, Big Thought, works to radically shift the educational status quo. Our mission – to make imagination a part of everyday learning – echoes the emerging consensus that preparing children for success in the 21st century will be largely about creating agile, adaptable minds that are able to tackle problems with ingenuity and innovation.
Eric Booth, noted author on creativity, once described art as humanity’s birthright. Each of us, regardless of social, economic or geographic differences, possesses a visceral need to create and express, to relate our experiences and understand the world around us. This is especially true for children, for whom the academic and developmental benefits of the arts and creative learning have been studied and validated time and time again. With these things in mind, bringing the arts to everyone – not just those with the means or predisposition to pursue their imagination – becomes an issue of social justice within our educational system.
Learn more about EducationThe Debt Limit Debate and the Latino Community
Posted by on July 27, 2011 at 5:45 PM EDTAn important part of the President's remarks to La Raza this week was on the current deficit spending and debt limit debate. This debate is not an abstract concept when it comes to the Latino community, it will have an impact on the life of every Latino family.
With days until our nation faces an unprecedented financial crisis, the President laid out the consequences the stalemate in Congress could have on the stability of our economy. For months, the President has worked to bring Democrats and Republicans together to find a balanced approach to reducing our deficit and ensuring our nation doesn’t default on our obligations for the first time in our history. President Obama, like Democratic and Republican Presidents before him, made clear that failure to compromise and raise the debt ceiling would, in the words of former President Reagan, do “incalculable damage.” In his speech to La Raza, the President turned the topic to the debt ceiling debate and his agenda for the Latino community:
Now, obviously, the other debate in Washington that we’re having is one that’s going to have a direct impact on every American. Every day, NCLR and your affiliates hear from families figuring out how to stretch every dollar a little bit further, what sacrifices they’ve got to make, how they're going to budget only what’s truly important. So they should expect the same thing from Washington. Neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to our debt, but both parties have a responsibility to come together and solve the problem and make sure that the American people aren’t hurt on this issue.
Learn more about Economy, Debt DebateGiving Every Student a Chance to Succeed in the Future
Posted by on July 27, 2011 at 4:27 PM EDTEd. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
On July 19, 2011, I was recognized at the White House as a “Champion of Change” by the Obama Administration. This honor included the opportunity for me to participate in a roundtable discussion, concerning arts education, with other fellow colleagues across the country. In addition, a Los Angeles group, known as the Creative Coalition, made up of several movie stars also participated in the discussion of educating children through the arts and expressed ways to keep the arts alive in America’s schools.
It was a humbling experience to actually sit around a table in the White House, voicing my views on arts education, as well as listening to President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Education, Peter Cunningham, and many others, share their insight into the status of today’s arts education. Further, I was impressed to witness the passion of the President’s Art Committee, led by Dr. Mary Campbell, Dean of the School of the Arts at New York University, as well as several non-profit art education advocates. The education commitment of this administration was strongly felt around the room as discussions continued regarding the positive effects of the arts in the schools. My visit to the White House firmly validated President Obama’s vision to ensure that all schools in America successfully prepare children for lifelong learning and achievement. The round table session included the discussion of ways to reinvest in arts education. The President’s education initiatives, such as, “Race to the Top” and “Educate to Innovate” were pointed out as vehicles for schools to produce students that are not only academically smart, but innovative and have creative minds. We ended the round table discussion brainstorming strategies that will help to sustain arts in education.
Learn more about Education
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