IOWA'S 1ST FINE ARTS EDUCATION SUMMIT A SUCCESS!

​IOWA'S 1ST FINE ARTS EDUCATION SUMMIT A SUCCESS!

Almost 400 visual, media, music, theater and dance educators gathered on July 20th for our state's first Fine Arts Education Summit in Ankeny, Iowa. Several of our AEI members are on the leadership committee that helped organize the event and presented sessions. Many AEI members attended as well. Olivia Gude was the keynote speaker, focusing on how arts standards support learning for democratic life. She expressed how "art educators create citizens of a democratic society by creating the conditions through which youth experience the pleasures, anxieties, and responsibilities of democratic life". Fine Arts Consultant for the Iowa Department of Education, Angela Matsuoka stated, "The energy and enthusiasm was truly palpable, and the content was relevant and engaging to our attendees.  We had so many educators excited for our next Summit as they were walking out of the doors at the end of the day - and that is very telling!"  ​

Summit is Featured Story on "Talk of Iowa" on NPR

Des Moines Register Features Story on Summit

TESTIMONIES FROM SUMMIT ATTENDEES ​

• In the moment, during the keynote session, when Olivia flipped the standards grid to a flat plane and viewed them as a dance floor... blew my mind! I suspected it was an enormous and elaborate task to create and organize the National Standards, so, I too will need to remember that when I am revising curricular work.  In coming to the Summit, looking for many answers, I realized that even though my task seems enormous in isolation and from a single vanishing point, by simply changing the angle of my perspective, I can see it’s just another creative “dance”.   

• For me, today's Ah-ha moment was during keynote speaker, Olivia Gude's presentation when she said "It is useful to remember that as educators we create citizens of a democratic society, not so much by filling them with ideas or facts about democracy, as by creating the conditions, the pleasures, anxieties, and responsibilities of democratic life" I needed that reminder that a part of the creative process is the unknown and working through that creative problem solving is at times more important to student development than their understanding of a skill or task.