The ArtsSmarts Program: Description and Evaluation

ArtsSmarts is a national program that promotes the teaching of arts infused curricula and the invaluable lessons that artistic practices can contribute to self-awareness, creativity, empathy, and community. The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation funds the ArtsSmarts program, and the Canadian Conference of the Arts acts as the ArtsSmarts Secretariat. Organizations from across Canada have been chosen as ArtsSmarts Partners to oversee projects that meld the program objectives with localized needs, resources, and visions for learning through the arts. More than 125,000 young people, 2,500 artists, and 4,500 teachers and community members have participated in Phase I (1998-2001) of the ArtsSmarts program.The evaluative research into Phase I of ArtsSmarts has shown that the program is meeting its goal of promoting collaborative efforts that bring the arts to schools and communities. Artists are bringing new insights and skills to learning, while passing on their passion for the arts. Teachers and administrators are expressing gratitude for the infusion of the arts into their teaching, their schools, and their community centres. Young people are enthusiastically engaging in art making and showing consistent signs of gaining new understandings of curriculum subjects, of themselves, and of their communities. Parents are volunteering time to the implementation and support of the projects. Whole communities are beginning to recognize the benefits of having the ArtsSmarts program in their midst and are providing venues, media coverage, collaboration, and, in some case, additional funding for the projects.ArtsSmarts is embarking on Phase II of its programming, in which it will continue to support existing projects, expand the reach of ArtsSmarts to other Partners and communities, and identify strategies that will ultimately allow localized projects to become self-sustaining. The ArtsSmarts program is providing both leadership and opportunities to ensure that the arts remain a vital component of the lives and learning of Canadian young people

Dirt Circus: Queering sports and home through filth

This monograph accompanies the MFA Thesis Exhibition, “Dirt Circus”. I outline the history of circus and carnival culture and the ways in which queer identities are expressed through these artistic modes. I describe the nonconforming expressions of gender in these arenas through bearded ladies, aerialists, clowns, and the freak show. I then explore various groups from the 70’s to present day, including Bread and Puppet Theater, The Cockettes, and Split Britches, who utilize performance to further their ideologies of gender freedom, anti-capitalism, and sexual liberation. I compare our differing uses of cheap art and public engagement within the realm of performance and activism. I then discuss how these elements of queer activism and performance can be displayed in a domestic space through nostalgic home goods and carnivalesque game play. I end by investigating the social construction of the definition of ‘dirt’ and ‘freak’ and how these concepts relate to the queering and camping of intimate spaces

Minivan Motoring, or Why I Miss That Old Car Smell

It is very difficult to look “cool” while driving a minivan, and I never bothered to try. “Cool” is overrated anyway. What’s not overrated is the urban camouflage a minivan affords. “No one suspects the soccer mom,” Joe deadpanned as he rolled us a joint on the open door of the glove box. I had to agree as I pulled the van into the Shell station to gas up before our long trip to Charleston. I let the tank fill while I checked the various reservoir levels for brake fluid, antifreeze, power steering, and the like. As usual, I needed a quart of oil. Sam Patteson is a freshman Computer Science major. He is very active in the performing arts, and has written and directed several plays for Ampersand Arts in Staunton, Virginia. He wonders if it\u27s still possible to be a Renaissance man in the age of specialization

Amazing Grace and Powerful Medicine: A Case Study of an Elementary Teacher and the Arts

This case study traces the development of one teacher as she participated in Teachers As Artist, a four-year professional development program for teachers. I have used transformation theory, an articulation of the complex processes involved in life-altering adult learning, to examine her development from early dispirited participation in the arts program to her new stance as ardent advocate for the arts in education. This case study illustrates how institutional, curricular, pedagogical, and personal issues combine to influence the course of teacher change in relationship to the arts. The lasting effects of this teacher’s learning on her students, her school, and her own personal and professional life attest to the transformative potential of experiences with the arts. Keywords: professional development, arts education, transformation theory, longitudinal case study Cette étude de cas décrit l’évolution d’une enseignante qui a participé durant quatre ans à un programme de perfectionnement professionnel intitulé Teachers As Artist. L’enseignante dont il est question est l’auteure de cet article. Elle utilise la théorie de la transformation, qui cerne les processus complexes en jeu chez un adulte lors de l’apprentissage d’un savoir qui change sa vie, en vue de décrire son évolution, depuis sa participation dénuée d’enthousiasme au début jusqu’à l’émergence de sa conviction de l’importance des arts dans l’éducation. Cette étude de cas illustre comment des questions relatives à l’établissement, au programme, à la pédagogie et à la personne se combinent et influencent l’évolution de l’enseignant dans son rapport à l’art. Les effets durables de l’apprentissage de cette enseignante sur ses élèves, sur son école ainsi que sur sa vie personnelle et professionnelle témoignent du potentiel de transformation qu’offrent des expériences avec l’art. Mots clés : perfectionnnement professionel, éducation artistique, théorie de la transformation, étude de cas longitudinale

Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism

Player pianos, radio-electric circuits, gramophone records, and optical sound film—these were the cutting-edge acoustic technologies of the early twentieth century, and for many musicians and artists of the time, these devices were also the implements of a musical revolution. Instruments for New Music traces a diffuse network of cultural agents who shared the belief that a truly modern music could be attained only through a radical challenge to the technological foundations of the art. Centered in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, the movement to create new instruments encompassed a broad spectrum of experiments, from the exploration of microtonal tunings and exotic tone colors to the ability to compose directly for automatic musical machines. This movement comprised composers, inventors, and visual artists, including Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch, Jörg Mager, Friedrich Trautwein, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttmann, and Oskar Fischinger. Patteson’s fascinating study combines an artifact-oriented history of new music in the early twentieth century with an astute revisiting of still-relevant debates about the relationship between technology and the arts

X-ray Variability of the Magnetic Cataclysmic Variable V1432 Aql and the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 6814

V1432 Aquilae (=RX J1940.2-1025) is the X-ray bright, eclipsing magnetic cataclysmic variable ~37' away from the Seyfert galaxy, NGC 6814. Due to a 0.3% difference between the orbital (12116.3 s) and the spin (12150 s) periods, the accretion geometry changes over the ~50 day beat period. Here we report the results of an RXTE campaign to observe the eclipse 25 times, as well as of archival observations with ASCA and BeppoSAX. Having confirmed that the eclipse is indeed caused by the secondary, we use the eclipse timings and profiles to map the accretion geometry as a function of the beat phase. We find that the accretion region is compact, and that it moves relative to the center of white dwarf on the beat period. The amplitude of this movement suggest a low-mass white dwarf, in contrast to the high mass previously estimated from its X-ray spectrum. The size of the X-ray emission region appears to be larger than in other eclipsing magnetic CVs. We also report on the RXTE data as well as the long-term behavior of NGC 6814, indicating flux variability by a factor of at least 10 on time scales of years.Comment: 44 pages including 16 figures; ApJ, in pres