The Maine Alliance for Arts Education and the Maine Department of Education have collaborated to identify nine Maine communities where schools and a range of partnering organizations invest in the imaginative development of children and youth. Funding from the Kennedy Center, the Betterment Fund, the Maine Arts Commission and the Maine Department of Education made the search possible.
The six finalist communities include Arundel, Blue Hill, Camden-Rockport, Deer Isle/Stonington, North Haven, and York. The three semi-finalist communities are Brunswick, Denmark, and Portland (Reiche School).
The search for these communities grew out of a statewide census of arts learning that documented that children’s access to education in music, visual art, dance and theater is not equal throughout the state. The census raised the question, “Where are the communities that even in hard times use their available resources to support the development of young people’s creativity and innovation?”
Through an open application and juried selection process, nine communities that vary in size, location, and resources were selected to be honored and to be visited and studied by teams of Maine citizens from all walks of creative work. The purpose of these visits is to:
· Acknowledge a set of Maine communities that value and invest in the creative interests of young people
· Learn about the creative opportunities they offer children and youth
· Find out how these communities sustain and grow these opportunities
· Figure out how more Maine communities could do the same.
One result of this initiative, available to all Maine educators and youth advocates, will be a website that showcases and describes Maine’s top Imagination Intensive Communities. The website will include contact information for dialogue with or visits by other communities for the purpose of creating a network to incubate ideas for future innovations.
here
Going From STEM to STEAM
For the past three years the Maine Community Foundation (MaineCF), the national Surdna Foundation, and the Maine Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE) have partnered to offer a one-of-a-kind opportunity for Maine’s public-school arts teachers. The program, the Maine Arts Teachers Fellowship, has provided grants of up to $5,000 to teachers to support personal artistic development through interactions with top professional artists in their fields and an additional $1000 to bring this new learning back into the classroom. Because of ongoing economic challenges in Maine, MATF will be suspended for the coming year until local support can be raised to sustain the project.
Read More
|
