Re: [Mpls] Arts in the Mpls schools

[Elizabeth Greenbaum]

I will ditto what WizardMarks implies. Children absorb language, math 
and reading (i.e. the basic alphabet) skills in the blink of an eye just 
by singing songs. Music, movement and visual ques are perfect for 
facilitating learning the 3Rs in ways that are very accessible to 
children. When it comes to illiteracy and the bigger issues of children 
not learning, I think we have to honestly look beyond the schools at 
what is not working in these children's lives. If we expect classroom 
teachers to work mericles, with or without the arts, when these students 
don't have enough food to eat, are in abusive situations, and/or have a 
lack of parental/family/guardian support. We would be pretty nieve to 
think the schools can solve such dire problems. We are most likely going 
to loose these children with or without the arts. The only small hope is 
that the opportunity for the arts to spark something in any these 
children is a reality that happens all the time.
Liz Greenbaum
Longfellow

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Anderson & Turpin wrote:
The point I've been trying to make is that the three R's should come 
first,
before the arts, before science, before history and civics. ...

WM: This is my point of disagreement. The 3 Rs, yes, and the arts. 
Kindergartners and pre-kindergartners don't get much science, history, 
or civics. The arts are great ways of addressing arithmetic (so are 
the odds at the race track, the way I learned), they also address 
hand-eye coordination, and better still, hand-eye-mind coordination. 
Listen to a four year old sing; it takes a while to hear and have the 
voice repeat a sound, it takes even longer to repeat a series of sounds.

The most important part of this discussion is that, even in broke 
times, we cheat ourselves, the world, and the species when we cheat 
the children.
WizardMarks, Central

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