I say when you have the chance to see this, take it. To that end, I spent a day at the Arts Connection workshop, a summer camp of sorts for teachers put on by the Association for the Advancement of Arts Education. Arts Connection brings in professional artists to help teachers use the arts in all areas of the curriculum. It reminds them that children learn in many different ways, and the arts can help reach every child. It tells them that children who create or perform something will never forget it.
Teachers say, in the last decade, the classroom has become a far less creative place.
They say proficiency testing rules the day. So, in a sense, this week at Arts Connection has been revolutionary. The teachers danced, cut, pasted, wrote, sang, acted and remembered how good it felt to do those things. They reveled in an environment where creativity was an ultimate goal, where work was supposed to engage the senses. And some of them, at least, saw how these wonderful things are receding from their own classrooms.