The Arts are Shrinking: What's Up With Creativity in Education?

As we all know, in schools across the country, the arts have all but disappeared from the school day.

In an article in the East Bay Weekly, in Oakland California, journalist Ellen Cushing writes: 

"According to a survey of local education agencies conducted by the California Department of Education, some 48% of districts were forced to cut or eliminate their arts, music and drama departments between 2008-2010. Many educators predict further cuts as funding continues to shrink."

"Take My Word For It!"'s goal is to fill in this arts education gap by providing kids the opportunity to practice the literary arts in after-school and community-based classes.

Arts help kids thrive! We think that the imagination is a vital part of learning!

Passion-Based Learning is the Future of Education

Do any of you follow KQED's MindShift? It's a great site that offers everything new in learning, technology, and all the new factors that influence education.

Check out this great article on how we can better incorporate passion-based learning into the classroom.

Instead of rewarding mindless obedience and memorization, Kimberly Vincent argues that we should be encouraging initiative and show kids more relevance in their studies.

What do you think of her passion-based learning tenants? How do you want to see the future of your child's education?

Did you realize...

...thatless than one quarter of high school seniors scored at the proficient level on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress writing exam?

College instructors estimate that one half of high school graduates are unprepared for college level writing.

A 2006 New York Conference Board study reports that 72 percent of high school graduates entering the work force are deficient in basic English writing skills. (taken from The East Bay Monthly article entitled, "Literary Links" by Tim Kingston.

Yikes!

I hope our program is one small way to chip away at these statistics. Capture young writers' imaginations by letting them in on a secret: writing can be fun! Sure, the mechanics are essential, but if you learn to love words then you're more inspired to use them well, spell them well, construct sentences well, and punctuate them well.