Spectacular Vision for kids and the arts

Last week I participated in a CPS one day conference on Arts in Education.
These are people with Spectacular Vision. I was in a room full of artists, creators, educators, all willing and ready to navigate the complex and sometimes thorny pathway to providing arts education to Chicago Public School students.

All I can say is that is was inspiring. It was amazing to see so many people with so much passion for bringing the fundamental need of arts and culture to kids. Visual Art, Dance, Theater Arts, Music, Literary Arts: they are all a part of what completes the learning process. 

To be able to utilize ones creativity can only help in things like critical thinking and problem solving. Thinking about a poem or story to commit to paper or present to a captive audience; utilizing color and form to create an object on canvas, or in 3 dimensions and seeing how objects relate to one another; listening to music and allowing your body to move to it, and be moved by it. All of these things may be what we, as artists and adults, might take for granted, but they are rare and special occurrences to many.

Hats off to those who make it their life's work to help artists such as myself, to be able to provide these much needed forms of creativity and connection to the outside world to children in the Chicago Public Schools, and to schools around the country.

Here is a chance that I had to help and create some spectacular visions. The video here is the result of only an hour of time spent at Bell Elementary School in conjunction with their Serendipity Days. The room is packed, the audio is rough, but these kids are moving, their listening to music, their seeing how their movements and efforts effect the person they are touching and dancing with. Talk about an hour in life well spent!