Principals' Forum:

Active Learning for 21st Century Schools 

March 4, 2010

 11:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Tacoma Art Museum 

Are you preparing your students to be

“the new untouchables”?

ArtsEd Washington, an affiliate of the Kennedy Center, would like to welcome you to a forum designed especially for principals.

Every principal wants his or her school to be a place of active learning, with creative teachers and engaged students. With the many demands of accountability, it can be difficult to get the time to focus on creative learning, and yet, where this is targeted and intentionally nurtured, many benefits result.

“The arts can help students become tenacious, team-oriented problem solvers who are able to think creatively.” Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education. Isn’t this something we seek for every student?

According to research just released, 63% of principals are dissatisfied with the quantity of arts in their schools and 33% of elementary students receive less than an hour a week of arts learning.*

Attend this workshop and learn from peer principals the low or no cost ways you can immediately begin to foster creative learning in your school.

 Peer discussion workshops will be facilitated by principals who have participated in ArtsEd Washington’s Principals' Arts Leadership program.

Registration is restricted to principals, assistant principals and administrators only.

 The $45 fee will include lunch and the first 30 participants to register will receive a copy of Third Space: When Learning Matters, by Richard J. Deasy and Lauren M. Stevenson

Third Space tells the riveting story of the profound changes in the lives of kids, teachers, and parents in ten economically disadvantaged communities across the country that place their bets on the arts as a way to create great schools. The schools become caring communities where kids - many of whom face challenges of poverty, the need to learn English, and to surmount learning difficulties - thrive and succeed and where teachers find new joy and satisfaction in teaching.

“Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies —will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.”

Thomas Friedman, October 2009 Op-Ed, The New York Times

*www.arts.wa.gov/education/aeri.shtml