Global Competencies through the Arts and Creativity

1.  Investigating the world beyond their immediate environment.
2.  Using the arts to recognize their own and other's perspectives.
3.  Communicating their ideas effectively with diverse audiences using the arts.
4.  Using the arts to translate their ideas into appropriate actions to improve conditions.

Click on Read More to access Resources and Curriculum Ideas.

Students develop global competence through the arts by:

The image above is one taken at the Navratri Festival at The Galaxy Education System (TGES) in Rajkot, Gujarat, India in 2011.  Enjoy the audio file which is also from that festival.  Click the image to enjoy a brief glimpse of this fabulous celebration, 9 nights of dancing, to honor their favorite goddess, Durga.  a Hindu deity.  She is the goddess of the Victory of Good over Evil.  The dances are performed by the students at TGES, from the very little ones (PK) through high school,  and the festival is broadcast live, online to the world.  The arts and creativity are abundant, from the music, singing and dancing to the costumes, which are spectacular.

Resources

The Greatest Theft in History - the story of the Monuments Men

Your students can not only understand history more deeply, but they can become a part of the ongoing work of the Monuments Men.  Here are Sample Lesson Plans!

Here you may read excerpts from and order the book, Monuments Men, and read the many excellent reviews it received.

Art Through Time - a Global View - themes include Converging Cultures, Dreams and Visions, History and Memory, Ceremony and Society, Cosmology and Belief, Death, Domestic Life, Writing, Portraits, The Natural World, The Urban Experience, Conflict and Resistance, and The Body.

Food and Culture - a global, collaborative classrooms project.  Join today!

The Arts in Turkish Schools -  most schools in the USA have cut their programs for music and art.  It was amazing to visit some schools in Turkey, where the arts in the classrooms are alive and well!  The painting (shown below) was magnificent and enormous - one of many paintings and other artistic creations by the students.  Go to this page and see so much more!  Watch the video of the kindergarten class and the teacher with the piano . . .

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The arts as the foundation of the curriculum - Inner Harbour school in Douglasville, Georgia, USA.

This amazing school uses the arts as the foundation for the entire curriculum!  All students take the West African drumming class, and they have performed at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, conducted a performance for President Jimmy Carter and were invited to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in London, England!

Visit this page to view their astonishing rock sculptures, the bridges they designed and built, wooden horse sculptures and painting of a horse - they actually painted the horse! - as a study in anatomy!

This is a residential school for children who are emotionally and behaviorally challenged.  The program operates under minimal  (bare bones) funding and resources, but the results achieved are outstanding.

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Curriculum Ideas

Join or start a global, collaborative classrooms project.   See the Food and Culture project below, or visit iEARN.org or ePals.com for other projects, or to initiate your own!

Conduct a study comparing traditional festivals or celebrations in many countries or cultures.

Students create an online database or other type of web site which connects various arts (painting, sculpture, music, dance, drama, filmmaking, cuisine . . . ) to history, geography, agriculture, environmental studies, climate, health, customs and morals, . . .

Students create video games based upon art in various cultures.

Collaborating with students and artists in a variety of countries, host an online art exhibit.

Create a global, collaborative Art Show in which student art is auctioned.

Organize and create a global, virtual Kids Museum of Art.

Social Issues - Have students explore, then select, a global social issue then determine a way to create change- through the arts.  For example:  Hunger -  how can hunger be eliminated, if not at least reduced, through a project involving the arts.  This may incorporate a variety of applications, from sketching to filmmaking.

Create your own "One Day on Earth" type film. (See below.)

The following video is the official movie trailer to the film One Day on Earth.  Here is the project.

What are your suggestions?