Tim Mikulski

As my third Arts Education Blog Salon comes to a conclusion, I wanted to first thank you for stopping by and (hopefully) reading all 31 posts over the past week.

The good news is that all of the posts will remain on the site and you can view them all at any time via this link - blog.artsusa.org/tag/march-2011-salon. You can also search our blog by topic or by other tags listed at the bottom of each post. And, if you are ever interested in blogging yourself, just send me an email.

I also want to thank all of the intrepid bloggers from the week: Victoria Plettner-Saunders, Ken Busby, Kristy Callaway, Alyx Kellington, Lynne Kingsley, Rob Schultz, Deb Vaughn, Allen Bell, Kim Dabbs, Rachel Evans, Kathi R. Levin, Joan Weber, Marete Wester, Richard Kessler, Merryl Goldberg, Clayton Lord, and Ben Burdick.

Each of the authors (among them a few staff members of Americans for the Arts, members of our Arts Education Council, Twitter friends, meeting presenters, and members of Americans for the Arts) wrote great pieces that rarely overlapped, but when they did, they complimented each other.

Considering my usual guidance is, "Write on anything related to arts education that you feel needs to be addressed - in under 650 words," I think they do a wonderful job.  

And now channeling my former college newspaper Opinions page editor self:

Despite the scary overtones going on with federal, state, and local investment in arts education, I can't help but be at least a little optimistic that we have leaders like our Salon writers, and many others, out there fighting on the ground every day.

Not to mention, we have the graduates of amazing programs being carried out at the local level to pass the torch to the next generation of advocates.

And, if the NEA studies and TV ratings are right, these kids are still participating in the arts, just in different ways.

Kids are still interested in playing guitar, but now it might have been Rock Band that inspired them.

They might not feel comfortable taking a dance class, but they'll check our or participate in a flash mob on YouTube.

They see Wicked - or even Spiderman: Turn Out the Dark - and want to become the next flying actor or stuntperson.

Or, like me, they make terrible art in visual arts class through the years, but they go on to appreciate and collect the art of others instead.

Inspiration, creativity, and innovation, might be waning in schools thanks to the weight of testing and STEM learning and NCLB, but you can't stop a child's imagination.

And that is the core of arts education.