Art, Education and Hope
Obama talks about the importance of arts in the schools, and students at a South Bronx high school talk (beautifully) about “Yes we can.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN2Zy_68RcY
http://my.barackobama.com/yestheycan
About Judith
Judith Tannenbaum is a writer and teacher who cares very deeply about a vision and practice of art-making that includes all of us. She has received two California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence grants. The first of these allowed her to teach poetry at San...
Connections
Causes Judith Tannenbaum Supports
WritersCorps (http://www.writerscorps.org) Prison Creative Arts...
Art
I am so glad you posted these videos. I spent a lot of time in school making and learning about art. Unfortunately, I was a minority. Sports have become a huge money making venture for colleges and universities, so art departments are often forgotten in terms of funding. Despite this, there are exceptions; I went to Kenyon College, a small liberal arts school in rural Ohio. Until recently, the funding for art students was almost non-existent. Now, they have created a fundraising plan to build an entirely new art "mini-campus" so that students have more resources and inspiration for creativity!
Julie Boddorff, Red Room
thanks for writing
Thanks so much for your response, Julie. I worry so much about exactly Obama's subject in that first video -- how No Child Left Behind has eliminated making art from so many of our public schools. In one San Francisco Middle School the principal told us (the program I work with has teaching artists sharing creative writing with youth -- http://www.writerscorps.org) that only the kids scoring in the top 10% on standardized tests could have any art during the school day. Since I also work a lot (sharing poetry) in prisons, I see a direct line between these two institutions. ANYWAY, that's great that Kenyon is putting money into arts for their students. Again,thanks for your comment. Best, Judith