wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

It could be helpful for listeners to visit the Americans for the Arts website to see statistics to support including these subjects
e.g., increased school attendance and test scores, the growth in jobs within (one of America's few "growth industries")

http://www.americansforthearts.org/
get_involved/advocacy/advocacy_004.asp

For local university Arts Education programs visit:
http://www1.cuny.edu/academics/index.html
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music

The additional comments from listeners who called in and have continued the conversation on the Web site illustrate the large interest and desire to educate the whole child both in the arts and through the arts. In addition to what the Center for Arts in Education and the Board of Education is doing in New York City, there are great focus on arts education elsewhere in the country and I have found www.keepartsinschools.org to be an important resource for teachers, parents and students.

i was sorry i could not listent to show on community arts education this morning.. wanted to hear what folk were up to and share that we'll be having s conference at teachers college this fall on community arts education called Conversations Across Culture: Exploringn Possibilities on november 9-10 with Shirley Brice Heath, Maxine Greene, Geoffrey Canada (Harlem Children's Zone), lucy freedman (TASC)Linda Frye Burnham (Community Arts Network), Dr. Julian Zugazagoitia (El Museo del Barrio)to provide a forumn for conversations exploring how the arts engage people in meaningful experiences, supoprt community building, youth development an dadvance scholarship, diversity and equity in the arts ed field.
anyone interested can contact me at lvural@hcz.org.. peace

The future is so uncertain for this generation, that the one thing every one of them will need is a strong creative sense. I highly recommend watching Sir Ken Robinson's talk on this topic: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4964296663335083307

The arts can provide people with meaning and a distinctive type of emotional stimulation. These intinsic effect are satisfying in themselves, outside of the educational benefit. Many can lead to the further development of individual capacities and community cohesiveness that are of benefit in the public sphere. Art can bring communities together. Art can also encourage cognative growth, create social bounds and expand capacity for empathy. As an artist I beg the schools to encourage Arts programs in our schools. It would be a tragedy if the Arts are neglected or ignored.

The relationship between arts education, particularly music, and academic achieved has been demonstrated time and time again. Art makes people smarter - its that simple! We need only look at great minds of the past - Leonardo, Galileo, Sir Assac Newton - all men powerfully influenced by music and the visual arts and we are all the better for it.

Can you discuss what it is to be a certified art teacher? And why there is a lack of them?

Math and science were not faulted by the 911 Commission, it was - A FAILURE OF IMIGINATION. That's what we get when we cut funding for arts for 2 decades. Ya gotta get 'em young if we want to prevent the next terror attack. It's too bad that we only see 1-to-1 connections or only what can be tested on paper when the deeper education of humanity resonants across all our adult lives.

Absolutely, as a musician I cannot but agree that the Arts are as important as the Sciences in education and history proves this out. This debate in favor of one opposed to the other has got to be redirected to showing as your guests and callers say about the arts engaging students into action and thought.

Just wanted to remind everyone of the situation in China. For a long period of time they had almost no arts education in the country's school system and now they are faced with a workforce that does not know how to think for themselves or think creatively. If we continue on a path away from arts programs then we will loose the great innovative and creative reputation that our country now has. We must remember that artistic activities help to develop not only artistic skill, but also free and open thinking in other concentrations including writing, mathematics, and science.

When I taught in one of the city's new small high schools, we partnered with BAM here in Brooklyn. In the ELA class inthe school's first year, we hosted a poet who wrote with our students and taught them to perform. Several students performed their poems in front of other schools at BAM at the end of the program. The next year, we planned to expand the program to 8 weeks to include more intense performance training and experience for the students. My principal cancelled it the week before it was to start and instead changed all the ELA classes for 10th grade to SAT prep. I left at the end of that year.