​You may have seen my post, Serendipity in Curriculum Design.  You never know what kind of fantastic ideas or possibilities will reveal themselves to you!  This past week, starting with two reminders of upcoming holidays, National Arts in Education Week and International Dot Day, found me with my mind tuned to the arts.  
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In my usual way of thinking in interdisciplinary and integrated curriculum design, I immediately thought of connections to reading, writing, media literacy, visual literacy,aural literacy, social/emotional literacy, and a project could be easily extended to include financial literacy, ecoliteracy, creativity & the arts as literacies, physical fitness and health as literacies, global competencies . . . You can find articles with learning activities for many of these literacies on this page at  21st Century Schools.
 
The various activities below also include opportunities to ensure that students develop the 21st century skills (7 Survival Skills of the 21st Century by Tony Wagner) illustrated in my 3 compasses.  

It seems serendipitous to me that today I happened upon other excellent resources connected to the arts.

National Arts in Education Week is a national celebration recognizing the tranformative power of the arts in education. Designated by Congress in 2010 through House Resolution 275, the celebration is designated to bring attention to this cause for elected officials and educational decision makers across the country and to support equitable access to the arts for all students.
National Arts in Education Week takes place annually during the week beginning with the second Sunday of September. This year it falls on September 11 – 17, 2016. Save the date for future celebrations:

• September 17 – 23, 2017
• September 16 – 22, 2018
• September 8 – 14, 2019
• September 13 – 19, 2020

For inspiration and resources click the Read More link!

When it comes to education, we somehow threw out the baby with the bath water when: 

1. Our schools were transformed from "places of learning" to "test prep and testing centers", and
2. Pedagogy, learning theory and child development were left behind in our rush to integrate technologies into schools.

 
I.  Test Prep  & Standardized Tests Replace Learning

This transformation was not initiated by educators, it was not approved by educators and it has been strongly resisted by many educators.  However, between the forces of the federal government and the corporations who stood to make massive profits, education lost.  Educators lost.  

Worst of all - children lost.  Many of our finest teachers left the profession.  They knew that what this was doing to children was wrong, and they had no intention of participating in this process.