Blog Posts for Arts Education

Thank you to the many people who have been blog contributors to, and readers of ArtsBlog over the years. ArtsBlog has long been a space where we uplifted stories from the field that demonstrated how the arts strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically; where trends and issues and controversies were called out; and advocacy tools were provided to help you make the case for more arts funding and favorable arts policies.

As part of Americans for the Arts’ recent Strategic Realignment Process, we were asked to evaluate our storytelling communications platforms and evolve the way we share content. As a result, we launched the Designing Our Destiny portal to explore new ways of telling stories and sharing information, one that is consistent with our longtime practice of, “No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number.”

As we put our energy into developing this platform and reevaluate our communications strategies, we have put ArtsBlog on hold. That is, you can read past blog posts, but we are not posting new ones. You can look to the Designing Our Destiny portal and our news items feed on the Americans for the Arts website for stories you would have seen in ArtsBlog in the past.

ArtsBlog will remain online through this year as we determine the best way to archive this valuable resource and the knowledge you’ve shared here.

As ever, we are grateful for your participation in ArtsBlog and thank you for your work in advancing the arts. It is important, and you are important for doing it.


Merryl Goldberg

Arts Education: Capability and Opportunity

Posted by Merryl Goldberg, Jun 08, 2009 0 comments


Merryl Goldberg

Kids are incredibly capable.....especially given the chance and the opportunity. I often am reminded of how fortunate I am to be doing what I do - which is both being an artist, and working with kids, university students, and teachers in engagement with the arts. As such,  I am privileged and  I witness to young people's capability on nearly a daily basis. 

I recently attended the season finale of the San Diego Youth Symphony, which featured Andy Leu, Young Artist in Residence for the university center I run called Center ARTES.  This was Andy's last performance with the orchestra before going off to college. He is however, for anyone who reads this and living in southern CA, going to perform Sunday June 14th at 6:00, at the magnificent Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad CA.

The orchestra concert was amazing and to see kids perform with such dedication, feeling, passion, technique, and finesse is inspiring.  No doubt these kids are fortunate to have a dedicated and talented conductor, Jeff Edmonds, who pushes them, inspires them, and supports them. They also have parents who have encouraged and supported them, as well as probably had a few arguments related to practice time!

Having returned energized by the orchestra, I am able to expand on my last week's blog focus that described the teaching and encouragement of passion in children as a must.  In one of those serendipity moments that occur fairly naturally when our eyes remain open, I was fortunate to connect a talented, passionate, and kind-hearted actor, Kim Rhodes to Carol Channing and Harry Kullijian.  Anyone reading this blog with children in elementary school will immediately know this actor, for she plays Carey Martin, the mom to Zack and Cody, on the Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  What they don't know is her deep commitment to kids and their pursuit of an education.

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