| Integration | Arts Integration Through the Lens of Educators, Administrators, and Business Leaders |
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| Arts providers work diligently to provide the most effective delivery method for their program or art form in classrooms. Teachers and students are engaged and excited, but are administrators on board and are the overall goals and expectations of the district being met? Schools are faced with challenges in the 21st century to create a new environment for learning in this Conceptual Age. Pressure from state and national agencies are compounded with demands from employers for a creative workforce that will not be outsourced. Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council (TRAHC) has videotaped interviews with school administrators, community leaders, and business people in different states regarding preparing students for 21st century learning and 21st century workforce skills. The school administrators illuminate the strategies they are implementing in their districts to meet the ever-changing needs of their students. Business and community leaders discuss the skills they seek in the next generation workforce. This session will explore the perspectives of the stakeholders in education and their views on where the arts fit into the equation. What do they value about the arts to help them implement their goals and mandates? What are the driving forces moving administrators to maintain, implement, and push forward using the arts? How does professional development fit into this picture? What skills are employers looking for in the workforce of this century? The experts who have been interviewed have a long-term, collaborative relationship with TRAHC and support the arts as a core component in education. The questions posed to the administrators and business/community leaders focus on the arts at the core of 21st century learning. Those interviewed were given appropriate quotes from the SCEA Forum topics/concepts and asked to respond to these thought provoking excerpts. Participants in the session will view the interviews and then engage in active reflection on the presented perspectives. Presenters will lead the participants in discussion of how this influences and informs the work of integrating arts into the core of the 21st century curriculum. Questions will be posed to lead the discussion of paradigm shifts needed to move from the Information Age into the Conceptual Age. |
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| Jennifer Unger serves as Drama/Theatre Consultant for the ArtsSmart Institute for Learning at the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council. She received a Master of Arts in Theatre from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. With positions at The Shelton School (a private school for learning different students in Dallas), Capers for Kids, and the Dallas Theatre Center, Jennifer has worked with people of all ages both instructing in the art of drama and directing theatre productions. As ArtsSmart Drama/Theatre Consultant, Jennifer provides professional development in arts integration for schools in Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. As director-in-residence at TRAHC, she directs and co-writes original productions both for adult and young audiences. She also serves as adjunct faculty for graduate classes at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. |
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| Kay Thomas serves as Visual Artist/Consultant for the ArtsSmart Institute for Learning at Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council. She received a Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Texas A & M in Commerce, TX. Kay has worked with students and teachers in grades Pre-K through 12 as an artist/consultant in school districts throughout a multi-state area. She served first as Artist-in-Residence, then later as Curator of Outreach Education for the Art Museum of South Texas. In addition, she is both a designer and presenter for a variety of art workshops for teachers, parents, and artists in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. She currently teaches an art course for Texas A & M University-Texarkana pre-service classroom teachers. A Texarkana native, Kay continues to create and exhibit her ceramic sculptures. Her latest sculptures both celebrate and satirize in a very humorous way America’s obsession with celebrities, food, and pets. |  |
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