Thanks for helping to get the word out about this project totally conceived of by the Department of Arts Education of the Cleveland METROPOLITAN School District, with financially backing and opportunity / opportune mutual purposes of the Human Funds annual gala and silent auction, the pARTy.  (At it's most reent Board meeting, the board granted the CEO, Dr. Eugene Sanders, request to change the Districts name to METROPOLITAN.  A very new change, and one that hasn't filtered out very far just yet.)

...  and thank you for making this clear that this is a summer intensive for CMSD 10th and 11th graders only.  Even though it would be big fun having Sidhar there.  ;o)

     The CMSD Department of Arts Education has just completed its 8th year of ALL-City.  All-City has been primarily, but not exclusively, performance arts oriented.  The idea of expanding All-City ensembles and student focused groups to specifically service Visual Arts students has been a much-desired option for the last 2 years.  The Human Fund had / has a specific need for their gala this coming October, and with their support, The All-City Visual Arts Atelier was able tocapitalize on that need to launch the All-City Visual Arts Atelier with H.F.'s support.

     ArtHouse and Passport Project, have a long history with the Department of Arts Education, thus the call was made by the Department of Arts Education to these two wonderful arts organizations contracting them to be the providers of training for the selected students in this summer's intensive.  The Department of Arts Ed came up with the idea, and hired the two organizations.  So collaboration between the two is not quiet the inception of this project.

     How did you come across the information about the "October with Andy" Summer Intensive?  Again, thanks for sharing.

Thanks KMaCK for being a part of this wonderful, and I mean wonderful project.  I wish I had known about it sooner, because next year I will send some BIG talents your way.  I found out about it from Passport Project's website, which features an RSS feed option.  Just showing off now!  I have the RSS feed on my toolbar!!  The kids keep me so au courant!

We drove yesterday to Buffalo for the Francis Bacon show at the Albright-Knox Gallery.  I hate to drive, but it was worth it for a day beyond comparison.  The show is fabulous.  I came away with this quote from Bacon " I would like my pictures to look as if a human being passed between them, like a snail leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime."
The show generated many ideas for my own neighborhood and how the "new" Denison school should reach out to the neighborhood and its past and future.  I hope that I get a chance, KMack to present the ideas that morphed out of this visit to the Albright-Knox.  I want Art House to be part of a larger effort to generate creative interactions and an energy that revitalizes this neighborhood.  Last night in Buffalo, I saw a neighborhood that envelops and embraces the Albright-Knox.  We can have the same energy here.
Francis Bacon may be dead, but he has left a slime trail :)

It is great to hear a fresh voice.  Please keep reporting on our kids.  I am constantly amazed and encouraged by the young minds I encounter in my job.  More people need to realize that suburban blandness does not necessarily equate with success.

Your field report from Pennsylvania is the antithesis of the gloom and doom depiction of Cleveland School students.               AND I BELIEVE IT.   

Your simpatico understanding and confidence in your youth is infinitely powerful.  Your writing is powerful too. 

Thanks for your dedication, I know you love it! 

Your students are lucky…

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I do love my work.

You know it's funny, how many people look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them where I teach. Just yesterday I was speaking with a real estate agent, and when asked where I worked, of course I told her I taught high school in Cleveland. She gave me the most astonished look, a combination of horror, pity, and reverence, and said "Gee...that must be so tough." When I responded, "No, I love my job, it's fun" she looked so baffled, I had to add, "Every day is an adventure" .  She began to stutter, "B-b- but the kids..."  I interrupted before she could say anything ignorant, "Kids are kids. It's the adults in the system that give us all the grief in Cleveland."

I have finally been teaching in Cleveland long enough to figure out how to be effective in a system that has become obsolete, unwieldy, and crushingly bureaucratic. The key is to develop social networks both inside and outside the system. Finding like-minded people in the system creates a hub of support, outside contacts bring new ideas. The outside contacts now have a cohesive group of people in the hub who are eager to engage in creative collaboration. The outside network also can channel new sources of funding.

Karen Keys is a refreshing new addition to the CMSD administration. She understands the role social networks can play in breathing new life into an arts program struggling to survive.

The next social networking step for the Cleveland Atelier is to create a communications vehicle that will enable the greater arts community to easily interact with the staff to generate fresh ideas and opportunities, and perhaps even offer students a public voice, but do it in a way that can be both dynamic and safe.   Any ideas?

This is a perfect fit with ideas I've discussed with Karen and others at CMSD and with the latest generation of Drupal tools. Let's get together to discuss this - I'll offer the Inner Circle for the meeting - who should be there and when do we want to meet?

Disrupt IT

Norm,

    Maybe Drupal is a solution or maybe something else is.   A CMS would be a good way to go though.

________________________
Derek Arnold

I have a special reverence for CMSD teachers (considering how many of them I drove mad...just kidding :-) ). You go, MaryBeth. I would say that the CMSD should have some sort of a Content Management System for interaction among its' teachers. It would be amazingly useful for teachers to trade tips and techniques. Student organizations could use it too. MaryBeth, how often to teachers in other buildings interact with each other. I was always curious about that. ________________________
Derek Arnold