A Conference in Tennessee.

There looks like there will be an interesting conference in Chattanooga in May. Only 50 participants are being accepted with a deadline of March 1. The information on the website is excellent and the structure (teams of five will create a "Learningscape") bypasses traditional conference formats.

I am intrigued and plan on doing a bit more reading...Thoughts?

The college admissions process...

The University of Sydney taken from Trekearth.com

One of the things that we think about here at our school is how the college admissions process shapes how we do business as a school. One of the things we seems to debate is whether the high school learning process is valued in and of itself or if it is merely valued as the vehicle to get one into college.

Recently, one of our college councilors had an argument with a college admissions officer from a prominent New England small college. Essentially, the argument was over what was the true GPA of the student in question. Our view was that the entire transcript had earned the kid his/her GPA while the CA officer was only concerned with "the essential 5": math, English, history, science, foreign language.

My first reaction was to think about the colleges and their own visual and performing arts faculty/facilities/curriculum. For these liberal arts colleges, who are they hoping will fill this part of their campus? Are they drafting any artists/musicians/actors etc to fill these spots? How do these schools approach this end of education? Do they value certain parts of their own school over others?

It just seems to me like we are swinging the education pendulum towards a automatons and valuing only what we can measure. My hope is that this discussion will help figure out ways we can value the things that we can not "fill in a bubble" about: Expeditionary Learning, Aesthetics, Studio Based Learning, Community Based Learning, Brainstorming, Problem Solving etc. If you followed the link in the last post, the website for the conference at the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts is an excellent resource for beginning this conversation...

Mission Statement

A Mission Statement for this blog:

The GreenFire kiln at Noble and Greenough School.

I have decided to start this blog as a way of discussing some the issues that I return to again and again in the field of education. I am interested in learning more about the view points surrounding arts education, especially at the secondary school level. Clay is my medium but I would welcome input from educators, parents, administrators, town officials, etc. that pertain to any visual medium.

As this blog progresses, I hope we can explore many of the various issues in this area: content vs. competency, where arts fits into a high school/college/elementary school curriculum, public education vs. private, funding, the college application process and its effect of schools...

If any future readers want to bring on issues that are important to you, please bring them up. I welcome all input and truly hope this can become an active forum for all involved.

A little about who I am: I have been teaching ceramics at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham MA for 13 years. I have also taught at Sewickley Academy outside of Pittsburgh and at Phillips Andover in Massachusetts. I have taught drawing, painting, printmaking, and ceramics at the high school level as well as drawing and 2D design at number of community colleges while living in Portland, OR.