The Importance of Creativity, Dreams
And Play in K-12 Education
The Role of Art and Creativity in K-12 Education
Teachers of Interdisciplinary Science
TAKE AWAY: ALL ART IS TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY IS ART.
CREATIVE
DREAMERS & DOERS
Howard Bloom of the
International Paleopsychology Project
705 President Street - Brooklyn, NY 11215
phone 718 622 2278 - fax 718 398 2551
Big Bang Tango - See Tango Masters Incarnate 9 minute flash presentation that explains the cosmos by uncovering the cosmic rules beneath biology’s mask.
Amara D. Angelica
Inventor, Writer, Earth Goddess, Computer Wonder Women, Singularity University. and Kurzweil newsletter:
Bruce Damer and EvoGrid the movies :-) digitally evolved entity into a creature of chemistry.
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Don Davis shows us the first pictures from space EVER! and also ESA satellite COBE pictures a lot of work, travelling to pristine dark sky sites on both hemispheres! One can travel by magic to the edge of the red shifted visible universe and perhaps detect bright IR sources near us at the 'redshift limit' of that location...while being able to survey from there a lot of the universe unobservable to us, but it will be the same far flung fractal webs of galaxy clusters going on forever...
Space Colony art from the 1970's images 4,5,8(inverted) 9,10,16
Songs
are a simple rhyming mnemonic device which helps us even remember. We learn our first songs using rhyme to aid our memory. Songs help you memorize the information and since print was invented we've forgotten our roots of why we did it. The Chinese invention of moveable type, is credited to Bi Sheng in the year 1045 AD.
Bob Lefsetz explains the role of the artist and music - art and creativity - in culture and the way technology and the Labels have both changed the music business forever.
Why Use Music to Teach Reading. ST. BRIGHID'S FIRE by Karen Ellis - Explains the Irish Etymology of Jazz. In the Irish language, the word Teas (pron. jass or chass, depending which Irish dialect you speak - means heat and passion. The Irish American American Vernacular English word "Jazz"; was spelled like they thought they heard it pronounced. Orality - By 1660 only 11 books were published in Irish. MUSIC TRAVELS The Roots of Print, Power, Politics, Literacy, Ballads, Plays, Thought and failed Censorship. t's All About The People's Right To Know!
The Funk Brothers 2x Grammy Winners: Learn why the ancient tool of evolution, science and culture - memorizing a song will also trump any other method of learning. Karen and the Funk Brothers
Element Song: The Periodic Table Song
.'Father of LSD' Dies at 102 Research chemist who synthesised LSD and had the world's first 'acid trip' on his bicycle.
"Educating world Citizens for the 21st Century"
Please feel free to circulate this summary of the most important insights I gained from the two day symposium with the Dalai Lama in Washington, D.C. Oct. 8th and 9th. The conference, put on by the Mind & Life Institute, was co-sponsored by the education departments of Harvard, Stanford, Penn State, UVA, U.of Wisconsin, U. of Michigan, GW University as well as the American Psychological Association. The format was a conversation between panelists. I won't always credit who said what, although the Dali Lama's voice is unmistakable.
The 20th Century was the Century of Murder. 250 million people were killed in its wars. Let's make this the CENTURY of COMPASSION. We need resilient, adaptable and caring citizens who respond with kindness to frustration instead of aggression.
Dalai Lama - We are all the same human being. All one animal. All have the right to a happy life. The desire for happiness moves evolution. Emotions are the same around the world. Mother's milk is the same around the world. WE ARE A SOCIAL ANIMAL. Let's be wise selfish instead of foolish selfish. And patient. Nine time failure, nine time renewed effort.
We have two levels of compassion. The first is the biological compassion for your immediate family and those with a positive attitude. The second kind of compassion is not dependent on a close relationship or the other person's attitude. This is where the training comes in. (A Compassion Gymnasium) It's not "This is the way I am." It's "I need training." Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice makes new connections in our brain. As a single footstep will not make a path, a single thought will not make a pathway in our mind. We must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
We don't need to bolster anger. It seems to have its own momentum. We need to bolster compassion. Anger motivated by compassion is useful, however. Compassion leads to action. That is most important.
Marion Wright-Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund - You and I have got to change the culture of this country!!!! We need thermostat leaders, who set the temperature, not thermometer leaders who just read the temperature and act accordingly. Oh God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute, of the child born of rapture and the child born of rape, the child of destiny and the child of despair, of children without hope and children with hope to spare - We ask you to hear our prayer.
Attention, Emotional Regulation and Learning: Negative emotions interfere with retaining information. Those are emotions that persist beyond their usefulness. Returning back to baseline quickly is skilled emotional regulation. Critical thinking is a part of learning how to let go of anger. With puberty starting at 10 and the prefrontal cortex not maturing until the mid-twenties, children experience a longer period of a lack of capacity for critical thinking, combined with the surge of hormones. Deaths are up because of this.
When confronted with intense emotions, two reactions are possible - sympathy and emotional distress. Well-regulated emotions are a part of sympathy, involving the ability to calm down and the ability to be caring. If children don't feel loved, or have difficult challenges, it's harder for them not to be self-concerned. They feel personal distress when others are suffering. Self-regulation is tied to the ability to have sympathy. Compassion translates into courage for action, while personal distress is immobilizing and draining.
Dr. Martin Brokenleg, Lakota tribe, Vancouver School of Theology: In my language the word "child" means "someone who stands sacred". The four pillars of raising a child are 1. Belonging 2. Mastery 3. Self-responsibility/Independence 4. Generosity. The nuclear family is the greatest sickness of our culture. Children need many mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles. We must be the Village.
Practices: Academics improve when social/emotional skills are regulated. Feeling cards (hurt, sad, proud, joyous, angry) are available for each child to put on his or her desk, so feelings are a part of conversation.
Yoga practiced with 10 year olds, 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week, ending with a 3 minute guided meditation for 12 weeks. The students reported decreased rumination (repeated worry), less intrusive thoughts, and more ability to manage emotions.
Inner Resilience Institute, NYC: Establish an inner quiet time everyday with a Peace Corner - a place for quiet and a place to work out conflicts.
Lee Schulman, Stanford, A study was made of how teachers, doctors and engineers are taught. It was determined that teaching was the most complex and difficult profession to teach. Doctors and Engineers are trained for many more years and get mentored and trained in residencies and on the job. Teachers, who get virtually no mentoring while juggling the emotional and educational needs of 30 young people at a time, up to 160 per day, while meeting standards and competing with media and the streets, are vastly under-prepared and under-supported.
Peter Benson, Search Institute, Minneapolis: Every child has a spark. It our job to help them find their spark, share their spark, have a use for spark, so that they are a resource with a sense of purpose. Only 25% of American youth feel that they have a community who values them. "Tell me, child, what gives you joy and energy? What is good, beautiful and useful about you? What do you care for in life? Who knows? Who helps? What gets in the way? How can I help?" 700 teachers have pledged to have a conversation about their students' spark.
In my opinion, this is what all good teachers do instinctively. How about a nation of teachers pledging to have this conversation.
Nameste,
Laurie Marshall, Artist and Arts Integration Specialist
http://www.soulemporium.com
Creativity Killers
Trends and an even more recent educational technology initiative, that of using cell phone flash cards to help students learn organic chemistry nomenclature, structures, and reactions. CITE: Pursell, David P. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 1219.
Excerpts [snip] Traditional Approach
A traditional approach to organic chemistry instruction includes lecture, discussion sections, and laboratory. Students rely on course texts for substantial supplementation and reinforcement of course topics presented by the instructor. [snip].
Even with outstanding texts and the engaging multimedia resources that often accompany them, students often feel overwhelmed with the pace and content of introductory organic courses. As noted above, students may then resort to memorizing as a means of survival. The notion of memorization depends on one's perspective, but for the beginning organic student the nomenclature, functional groups, structures, and reactions are often viewed as part of "the infamous, dreaded 'orgo', a marathon of memorization."
To assist students with the task of memorization, all of the texts noted above consolidate nomenclature, functional groups, structures, and reactions into callout boxes that focus student attention. In addition, students often make their own flash cards for these topics. [snip]
Electronic, Web-based reaction flash cards are a relatively recent development, offering an unlimited variety of reactions, reagents, and products drills, often providing feedback to students (and instructor) to guide further study effort. [snip] The Web-based reaction flash cards have been shown effective in enhancing student ability to learn reactions ... . The disadvantage of the Web-based flash cards is that they require a desktop or laptop computer and students miss the learning opportunity of creating their own flash cards.
New Educational Technology Approach [snip]
[snip] With the advent of the iPhone and other handheld devices, students can access this organic course content 24 hours a day. This 24-hour-a-day access is likewise available with "podcasts" that are appearing in instructional efforts in many disciplines ... .
As students migrate to the versatility, mobility, and convenience of cell phones-they can listen to music, watch videos, text or call friends, email, surf the Web, play games-all on a pocket-size device, the previous allure of the laptop computer is rapidly waning. A challenge for educators is to capitalize on the pervasive use of cell phones by younger students for educational purposes. [snip] [Many More Excerpts]