| Alameda County, CA | November 6, 2012 Election |
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Arts Education in K-12 ClassroomsBy Mary PippittCandidate for Board Member; Castro Valley Unified School District |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
My vision for bringing balance back for a comprehensive education and ensuring that all students have access to a quality, standards-based arts education curriculum.This is a special time in education as the new Common Core Standards challenge us to rethink education. As educators examine these standards, strong conceptual shifts and an alignment of curriculum and interdisciplinary integration across subject areas will surface. Arts Education will be an avenue to fostering habits of mind and growth mindsets critical to increasing our students' achievement in this 21st century Arts education is not only a separate, special class. Arts should be integrated into everyday classrooms, even in secondary grades. Use the arts as a learning tool (musical notes to teach fractions or to develop phonemic awareness); incorporate arts into core classes (writing and performing plays about the civil war, or skits about the process of osmosis). Integrating art gives students a hook to learning content. Working on stand-alone classes in the arts is necessary too. Recruit community members to volunteer time and services, even if only an hour a month. Local musicians and artists, as well as retired teachers, can donate time and expertise. This has an added advantage of building a strong relationship between schools and their communities. Investigate community partnerships that will fund art education. In Dallas, a coalition of arts advocates, philanthropists, educators, and business leaders have worked to get arts into all schools, and currently, every elementary student receives forty-five minutes a week of art and music instruction. An advantage to forging community partnerships is that it helps create programs that are more sustainable as they are less dependent on budget fluctuations or changes in administration. |
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ca/alm Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 29, 2012 13:29
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