Month: October 2019

Outline

Education/Child Development

• Using the study I found would help solidify the point that children need art to help them understand the world and develop their knowledge outside of just the “core” that adults set up for them.
  • Adding a picture from the study to help solidify the idea.
• Can use that to Segway into Yo-Yo Ma saying
  • The curriculum in schools ignore the fact that at the end of the day, the individuals that they are teaching are kids who are just trying to understand this world. Yo-Yo Ma, in his article Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education, talks about how “In our industrialized societies there is a great deal of controversy these days over what life is and when it begins and how we approach the agony of death which, in industrial society, we try to avoid thinking about it… the arts help us cope with these issues by engaging, not avoiding.”
  • I would go on to talk about how bringing this kind of upfront learning and using art to help the thoughts develop would be beneficial to the growing generations.
• I want to find a clear way to quote Lehrer and use either his or Yo-Yo Ma’s essay to Segway into the naysayer paragraph.

Naysayer paragraph with concluding sentence of:

• Art not only will help our newer generations become more well rounded individuals, it can help them cope with something that many children have to deal with nowadays, divorce.

Therapy

• Divorced Children: the repercussions that they face from having parents in divorce.
  • How art can help with the possible repercussions.
    • In Yo-Yo Ma’s essay he talks about empathetic thinking and how it can help us understand that “There is something that connects us all and is bigger than each of us.” (Yo-Yo Ma, 2).
    • This can be used for children in therapy to better understand why their parents got divorced and better cope with it. This being said, the empathetic thinking

Child development in the current generation is something that many parents and school professionals take very seriously. This study conducted by Tiina Kukkonen and Sandra Chang-Kredl looked into the use of drawing as social play and how the children interact and help build meaning through the use of art. I feel that this essay would help me build more meaning as to why art should be integrated into the curriculum starting in younger grades like kindergarten, all the way until high school. I find this source to be trustworthy because it is published by The International Journal Of Art and Design, which is a peer-reviewed academic journal which publishes on behalf of The National Society for Education in Art and Design. I want to build the connection between Yo-Yo Ma and this study in regards to the use of art in helping create a more well rounded curriculum and the benefits that art can produce for children and even adults. I also want to build a connection between this study and Lehrer’s piece to show how art can help in many fields not only child development but the sciences as well.

Kukkonen, T., & Chang-Kredl, S. (2017). Drawing as Social Play: Shared Meaning-Making in Young Children’s Collective Drawing Activities. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 37(1), 74–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12116‌

I wanted to also include some information from another article about how people with divorced parents grow up and the struggles that they go through. This article interviews 10 adults who were younger than 18 when their parents got divorces, and talked about the long lasting effects that they have noticed that affect their own relationships and other effects it may have had. I felt that this essay could also help me integrate the effects of divorce and my ideas on the use of art in therapy to help the coping effects. I would want to build these connections with Yo-Yo Ma and these interview findings in regards to the use of art in helping children cope and develop through tougher times.

Sheala C. Morrison, Stephen T. Fife & Katherine M. Hertlein (2017) Mechanisms behind Prolonged Effects of Parental Divorce: A Phenomenological Study, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 58:1, 44-63, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2016.1262652

Naysayer paragraph

The idea that education should reach into including the arts into our schools curriculum is favored by many, but many also disagree, especially the board of education. Back in my home town of Fairfield, Connecticut, there have been many budget cuts in the funding for many of the offered art and music programs. They even threatened to take away choir and the instrumental classes. The school boards are required to follow the Common Core Standards; in these standards it says nothing about the arts program in it, making the art department the first thing to go when money gets tight. The Common Core standards also have a scoring process which determines budgeting, the schools will cut art classes to make their scores higher to get the most of the budget. These schools also take into consideration the No Child Left Behind Act of 2015. This act states that children must be tested between the grades of 3 to 8 and once in high school to make sure they are keeping up with the rest of the class. President Bush put the original act into effect in 2001, right after 9/11, stating, “The new law reflects a remarkable consensus-first articulated in the President’s No Child Left Behind framework-on how to improve the performance of America’s elementary and secondary schools while at the same time ensuring that no child is trapped in a failing school.” This act would help so many children get the correct structure in the sense that they can walk out of high school with necessary knowledge. But since these tests only test reading writing and math, schools tend to cut arts out of the children’s schedule if they are falling behind. leaving kids walking out of high school without a well rounded education. The arts evoke creativity and thinking outside of the box. I don’t want our next generations of children to walk out of high school missing that opportunity, do you?

“Executive Summary of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.” Home, US Department of Education (ED), 20 Nov. 2007, www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html.

When thinking about the education of our youth you want them to be the most well rounded people that they can be. When you think of the curriculum now, we are ignoring a valuable part; the art. The use of art in the curriculum for schools can make kids more apt to do well and be more creative thinkers. As the writer of “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education”, Yo-Yo Ma, says, “Empathetic thinking is something that is severely missing in education today that is only STEM oriented. everyone wants innovation, recovering that inspired and innovative spirit of JFK talking about going to the moon…. The arts teach us that there is something that connects us all and is bigger than each of us.” This is a good way of looking at society in todays world. People are trying to force the new generations into becoming the next JFK, the innovation, the inspiration that he showed. They want kids to have this by using strict systems in the schools. When I went to high school, I was blessed to have the arts and music involved in the curriculum. This helped me find my passion for art and being creative. this helped me branch out into different ways of showing my creative side. When Yo-Yo Ma talks about changing the teaching style to include arts into the core classes, I agree with him. If I hadn’t had that experience as a kid growing up, I may have had to wait till I was much older to realize how much it had impacted me.

I feel that I am meeting my annotation goals. I always write in the margins and highlight key details. I fell that over the course of the semester, so far, I have definitely gotten better at annotations.

It was first published on the WorldPost, an online blog site, during the month of January in 2014, by Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist and songwriter.

Us as students should be exposed to art and music in our curriculum because it can give us much needed skills for real world experience when we get older. These ideas should be heard so that the kids that are growing up now can get the best education possible.

I’m reading this text to better understand how art and music can play a key role in a child’s schooling and education curriculum.

Genome: it is a complete set of genes or genetic material present in a cell.

Lemmings: a person who unthinkingly joins a movement, especially one that is in a rush for destruction.

Meridians: a set of pathways that flow through the body that carry vital energy (Chinese medicine/ Acupuncture)

I am working on making sure my ideas are clear and that I get my points across so that they aren’t choppy and unclear. I’m also working on making sure that my quotes and interview evidence sounds good and works well with my points.

My revision goals are that my paper will be organized and that my thesis is strong and clear. Also that my paragraphs make sense, flow well, and get my points across.

1. Finish writing out my thoughts.
2. Input quotes where needed to make points clear.
3. Make sure each paragraph ties to my thesis clearly.
4. Grammar and punctuation.
5. Make sure my ideas are complete thoughts and show the best of my ideas.
6. Make sure my piece flows well.

My biggest challenge is making sure I stay on track on my thesis and my ideas. sometimes I go on tangents and they don’t 100% relate to what I’m writing about.

If this challenge becomes to difficult for me, I would email my professor or ask one of my peers to help me reword something or even just read it for advice.

The idea that stories shape who you are really resonates with me. I think that they are used to teach meaningful lessons, as well as harsh realities, like in Drew and Ali’s interview with Ali’s father. His father talked about a story that he had heard from his father, and that he told his kids when they were growing up. The story is about a king and his son, and how his sons friends weren’t good friends. They did an experiment where they told everyone that they were going to put the son to death. When the friends came to the king, they said that he shouldn’t put the son to death, but didn’t offer anything they owned to save him. When the king then tested his friends, and they found that they would give their first born sons and one would give his life for him. This story shows the true importance in friendship and stories in helping understand life. The idea that narratives can clarify life for us is huge in Julia Becks piece “Life’s Stories”, “ultimately, the only material we’ve ever had to make stories out of is our own imagination, and life itself. Storytelling, then—fictional or nonfictional, realistic or embellished with dragons—is a way of making sense of the world around us.” This idea that there is life and a sort of truth behind fictional stories, even fairy tales, is giving a whole new perspective to the idea that our lives, in one way or another, are stories.

200-400 words comparing your second reading experience with your first. Did you notice something new? Did you react differently to one of the author’s claims? Did you read something critically when, at first, you read it as a believer or vice versa? Continue to “clear the fog.” Look up at least two more terms or references that you don’t know.

When I reread “I Am Not A Story” by Galan Strawson, I had a really different experience reading the second time. I noticed a couple view points that he had throughout the essay. Unlike the first time when I was completely lost between all of the quotes and very little explanations. I only somewhat believe with what he is saying. When Strawson says, “Life simply never assumes a story-like shape for us. And, neither from a moral point of view, should it,” I can’t help but somewhat disagree. not everyone thinks of their life as a story but Strawson is making it seem like thinking that way is completely wrong. Later on in the essay, Strawson contradicts this saying, “Consideration of the sequence – the ‘narrative’…. – might be important for some people in some cases.” So the thesis doesn’t completely go with this point and that where my confusion is rooted. I do agree with his point that the ‘narrative’ way of thinking or looking at your life isn’t the only one. I cleared most of the fog with his essay. There are blocks of quotes that I don’t 100% understand why he put them there, he contradicts his points, and it’s very lengthy so holding onto the original view, when it isn’t restated throughout the essay, is quite challenging. Other than that, I understand a couple of his view enough to use them in my essay we will be working on soon.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and free write your response to Galen’s argument. Note specific moments in his essay as you respond. Some things to consider: Have you ever felt impeded by your “life story?” If so, how? Do you feel like it’s truthful or possible to perceive your self as a singular self or can you relate when Galen talks about possessing many selves?

When reading Galen’s argument about the idea of Narratives and a life story, I was generally confused as to where the argument was going. The points that were made were very interesting and made you think about what was going on inside his head. When he brought up the fact that “life simply never assumes a story-like shape for us. And neither, from a moral point of view, should it”, I didn’t really understand that he was honestly thinking about. When I read that I was thinking that when he says “Story-like” he’s talking about a cartoon or Disney movie stories. When he also talks about the idea that we have many selves, I couldn’t help but laugh. Many selves, like split personalities all trying to fit into one brain, to come up with ideas and make rational decisions? I personally don’t believe that I have other “selves” in my head. I think that we experience life and in turn, it turns into stories which will end in our life being one giant novel filled with little stories. I’ve felt like my life story has held me back in certain ways, but it’s also pushed me forward in a more positive way of thinking. Our life stories shouldn’t hinder us and make us feel compacted and that we must follow a sort of ‘blueprint’. For myself, all I have to follow is the blueprint. I may stray throughout my life, but I have no problem following it. Others may not feel the same way, like their life isn’t a story, but it’s up to them and their perception. Who am I to tell people they’re wrong, that they’re life is a story?