For schools that plan to implement Meet the Masters with their own parents and teachers:

• New Schools:  Save 10% on a First Track Purchase
• Repeat Schools:  Save 5% on a New Track Purchase
• Refer-A-School:  Earn $100 for Each New School Sale Referred (no limit)*

• Refer-A-School:  Earn $100 for Each New School Sale Referred (no limit)*

Let us know if we can help provide you with more details of the program to share with your teachers, administrators, and PTA/PTO parents.

You must mention this offer when you order. For more information on this offer, please contact us today:

Phone:  619-537-0111
Email:  steve@meetthemasters.com

*Offer is only for schools that self-implement Meet the Masters and do not hire any MTM teachers to manage the program.  It is not valid on any homeschool products.  To earn the $100 referral the new school sale must be equal or greater than $1,500.  You must mention this offer when you order. If you have any questions about this offer, please email web@meetthemasters.com. Offer expires on March 1, 2012. 

We look forward to working with your students in 2012 !

East Valley Middle School Principal Dan Rispens said the committee worked hard to align the state standards with the district curriculum.

“We also examined what kind of opportunities are out there to purchase materials to support art in the classroom,” he said.

A program called “Meet the Masters” designed as a comprehensive art program for a district like East Helena’s was purchased, Rispens said.

“It utilizes master artist as the basis, teaching principals incorporated by those masters,” he said.

It also provides projects for teachers to apply those principals, Rispens told trustees, which took a lot of pressure off of having to invent them.

“They can just deliver the instruction,” he said.

Read the entire article here.

All of this concentrated learning — activities parents commonly think of as enrichment — was taking place not after school hours, but during recess, the once-unstructured midday break that for some elementary school students is slowly being squeezed out of the day.

Jump rope, freeze tag and the jungle gym have some new competition. At some of the city’s highest-rated public elementary schools, recess is now being seen by parents and educators as a time to pack in extra learning.

Read the entire NY Times post here.

Let’s see what happens when we start throwing out all the science and technology that the arts have made possible.

You may be shocked to find that you’ll have to do without your cell phone or PDA. In the first place, it uses a form of encryption called frequency hopping to ensure your messages can’t easily be intercepted. Frequency hopping was invented by American composer George Antheil in collaborationwith the actress Hedy Lamarr. Yeah, really.

Next, the electronic screen that displays your messages (and those on your computer and TV) employ a combination of red, green, and blue dots from which all the different colors can be generated. That innovation was the collaboration of a series of painter-scientists (including American physicist Ogden Rood and Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald) and post-impressionist artists like Seurat – you know, the guy who painted his pictures out of dots of color, just like the ones in your electronic devices. The programming inside owes its existence to J. M. Jacquard, a weaver, who invented programmable looms using punch cards. Exactly the same technique was borrowed to program the first computers and is incorporated into modern programming languages.

Then there are all those computer chips running our critical devices. They’re made using a combination of three classic artistic inventions: etching, silk screen printing, and photolithography.

Read the entire Psychology Today post here.

This holiday season, we encourage you to take time to explore art with your family during your Winter break.

Bonnie Steele, President

She amassed an enviable collection of treasures spanning most of American history, and now it’s about to go on display in an unlikely place, a wooded ravine in a small city in northwest Arkansas.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is regarded as the nation’s most important new art museum in a generation, offering the type of exhibits more commonly found in New York or Los Angeles. But this hall of paintings is taking shape in Bentonville, a community of 35,000 people best known as home of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. headquarters.

Walton’s collection provided a “sort of instant museum,” said Henry Adams, an art history professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Rather than starting with a small collection and slowly expanding, Crystal Bridges will be fully formed from day one.

“You usually don’t have a museum that appears out of nowhere,” said Adams, who ranked the new place “somewhere between the top and the middle” of American museums.

Read the entire Huffington Post article here.

Visit the official website for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (opens 11-11-11 at 11am).

Some times they are supporters of arts education. Sometimes they are not. Often times they would ask me “why” we teach arts education in our schools. The story I share with them ALWAYS provides a new awareness of the power of the arts to transform our students and our world. I am certain their view of arts education is dramatically changed.

The story I share uses the words of Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin. And on the day of the passing of Steve Jobs… it is only fitting I share this story with you.

Read the entire QUADRANT post here.

We share the ability for automated mental behavior with all other animals. But as neuroscientist David Eagleman explains in his new book, Incognito, the human brain also has an advanced capacity for mediated behavior. The goal of mediated behavior is flexibility and innovation. Mediated behavior depends on multiple brain circuits working on the same problem – what Eagleman terms “the team of rivals.” Instead of dedicating a limited neural network to a task, the brain tolerates redundancy and promotes networking. It’s what we mean by “keeping an open mind.” Mediated behavior can also involve conscious awareness: We overhear and participate in the internal conversation of our thoughts. The vigorousness of our mediated behavior is unique in the animal kingdom. It is what defines us as human beings.

Read the entire Chron.com article here.

WASHINGTON, /PRNewswire/ –With government and business leaders now emphasizing creativity as an essential 21st century skill for every student, Crayola is launching an initiative to inspire creativity in the next generation of Edisons, Armstrongs and Zuckerbergs.

Crayola has teamed up with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) to create the “Champion Creatively Alive Children” program. The professional development program emphasizes creativity as a 21st century skill and addresses the need for arts-infused education in schools. It empowers art teachers to become the “chief creative officers” in their schools and ensures that principals have the tools to lead their faculty to develop the originality in every child.

The U.S. Department of Education is hosting a professional development event based on this program at its national headquarters to put Department staff, who work on behalf of students every day, in touch with teachers and principals, their counterparts in the classroom. All participants, including principals and teachers from the Northeast, were told “don’t come as you are, come as you were” with a child-like spirit.  Hands-on activities led by Cheri Sterman, Crayola Director of Education and Child Development, will draw out each participant’s creativity to show how art activities build critical thinking and collaboration skills in students.

“We’re hosting this event today because Secretary Duncan and the Department recognize the importance of integrating the arts into teaching and learning from cradle to career,” said Suzanne Immerman, Director of Strategic Partnerships for the U.S. Department of Education.  ”Our students today really need more than knowledge and skills to succeed. They need ingenuity and imagination, and arts education is the ideal way to infuse creativity and critical thinking in their efforts to be productive citizens in a global workforce.”

At the session, Rachel Goslins, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, will present key findings from the Committee’s newly-released report, “Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools.” She will emphasize the critical role arts education plays in closing the achievement gap and building students’ innovative thinking skills.

“Creativity and innovative thinking are essential skills for success in school and in the 21st century workforce,” said Ms. Goslins.  ”It is not enough merely to graduate more students from school; we must engage and inspire them while they are there, and prepare them for successful careers afterwards.  All of our research points to the power of the arts in schools to increase academic achievement in reading and math, engage more students in learning and build creative thinking skills.  Programs like “Champion Creatively Alive Children” are crucial in giving principals and teachers the tools they need to ignite the potential in all of their students.”

Other education thought leaders who will present include: Suzanne Immerman, Director of Strategic Partnership for the U.S. Department of Education, Gail Connelly, Executive Director of NAESP, Deborah Reeve, Executive Director of NAEA, Tim Magner, Executive Director of P21, and Victoria Lozano, Vice President of Crayola. Sharon Hartley, Crayola Executive Vice President, will deliver 36 pieces of children’s artwork to be on permanent display at the Department of Education. The artwork was inspired by children’s vision of the theme “what creativity means to me.”

“Creativity is a skill that every child needs,” said Mike Perry, Crayola President and Chief Executive Officer. “We started this program asking ourselves ‘What if every principal and teacher championed creatively alive children in their schools?’ Imagine how ready these children will be to face 21st century challenges with a strong foundation in creative thinking.”

The “Champion Creatively Alive Children” professional development program includes videos showcasing how arts-infused education builds the 4Cs – critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, communication. A fifth video devoted to arts-infused education advocacy helps art teachers become the chief creative officer in their schools. Each video tells the story of a school that was awarded one of 20 “Champion Creatively Alive Children” mini-grants from Crayola and NAESP for the innovative ways they are integrating art across the curriculum. Five facilitator guides accompany the video series to enable principals and teachers to lead workshops and staff and parents’ meetings around art as a way to building 21st century skills.  The entire series is available at no charge on Crayola.com.

SOURCE Crayola

Read the entire article from Good.