Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.
Science teacher, Taylor Gaar, recites original poem 'Quantum Entanglement for the 5th Grade Classroom' at Kinnection Campout 2014 www.kinnectioncampout.org Z...
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There is plenty out there to discover, so let's start looking!"
"By Lori Day – In mid-January, this article on The Huffington Post hit my Facebook newsfeed like a Justin Bieber deportation petition—it was everywhere. In it, HuffPost Family News Editor Jessica Samakow writes:
'Pay attention, 2014 Mad Men: This little girl is holding a LEGO set. The LEGOs are not pink or “made for girls.” She isn’t even wearing pink. The copy is about “younger children” who “build for fun.” Not just “girls” who build. ALL KIDS. In an age when little girls and boys are treated as though they are two entirely different species by toy marketers, this 1981 ad for LEGO — one of our favorite images ever — issues an important reminder.'
Something about this piece with the iconic 1981 ad tapped the zeitgeist and it became one of HuffPo’s more viral articles in recent memory, receiving over 60,000 shares. And along the way, the small world of Facebook led to a comment thread on my wall where someone, upon seeing the little red-haired girl holding her LEGOs, wrote, “Hey, I know her!” And now I do too, because that’s the serendipity of social media. Her name is Rachel Giordano, she is 37 years old, and she’s a practicing naturopathic doctor in Seattle, Washington. Giordano agreed to talk to me about her childhood and the ad, and to pose for a new Then & Now photo meme, which you see above in the lead image."...
By Mary Plummer[Picture caption: Music teacher and former principal Carl Schafer has logged about 1,700 miles during his three-year quest to get arts taught in California's public schools. Mary Plummer/KPCC]
"There’s a little-known law that requires California's public schools to teach dance, theater, visual arts and music. Most school districts ignore it. Carl Schafer is on a mission to change that.
Schafer has spent the last three years lobbying to get arts instruction to every student in the state.
"When I first started doing this and bringing it up, there were lots of people in very important positions in education who were not aware," he said.
Since then, Schafer has made it his personal crusade to ensure the law is enforced. He's had meetings with state Sen. Carol Liu; Rick Pratt, the chief consultant to the state Assembly Committee on Education; and California Congressman Ted Lieu.
Schafer's made some progress. State Sen. Ben Allen is considering calling for an informational hearing to tackle the subject of arts instruction in the education code. The California Arts Council has also agreed to discuss the education code at a September meeting in Santa Cruz.
Schafer thinks all schools can offer arts instruction as mandated by the state.
"I think it’s attainable," he said. "It’s really, I think, a matter of learning how to do it." ...
***
"Nationwide, 42 states require the arts be taught from elementary to high school. But in recent years, the recession and an emphasis on standardized testing led to arts funding cuts in many school districts."...
"A Stamford art gallery owner who was arrested on June 22 after unloading an 800-pound steel sculpture of a bent, burnt heroin spoon at the Stamford headquarters of Purdue Pharma said his act of “guerrilla art” is the first in what he plans to be many unauthorized protests against the pharmaceutical industry.
The gallery owner, Fernando Luis Alvarez, whose gallery carries his name, is calling his planned campaign the “Spoon Movement.”
“That was the whole strategy we created for this. We are going after pharma companies, distributors, politicians and doctors,” said Alvarez. “Every time we go to a new company we will have a new spoon. That spoon will be taken away by the cops and I’ll get arrested and after that they will give it back and we will donate the spoon to a city that is suing the companies.”
Alvarez said his act of protest was engineered to draw attention to what he considers Purdue’s leading role in the nationwide opioid epidemic. Purdue is the maker of OxyContin and other opioids. The sculpture was made by Boston artist Domenic Esposito, whose brother’s heroin addiction began as a dependence on OxyContin and Percocet.
Alvarez is due in court on July 10 on one misdemeanor criminal charge of obstructing free passage. After refusing to remove the sculpture, Alvarez was taken away by police. Police originally said Alvarez would also be charged with a felony, but he was not.)
The story of Alvarez’s act and his arrest went viral on the Courant’s website. That’s what Alvarez wanted and why he timed the unauthorized art drop to coincide with the opening of his multi-artist exhibit “Opioid: Express Yourself.”
“This goes back to the early roots of the gallery, its mission statement. It’s important for us to do this show to look at the problem from a different angle,” Alvarez said. “Artists, through their work, can hold accountable the architects of this epidemic.”
Easy access to opioids is one of the great scourges of contemporary society. It fuels the escalating nationwide toll of accidental deaths and has been cited as a major facilitator of the historic rise in suicides.
Alvarez blames the drug companies. He especially called out the billionaire Sackler family, majority owners of Purdue. The family’s fortune, earned through Purdue, has been donated to myriad institutions. The Sackler name is widely recognized, stamped on art galleries, museums and universities around the world. Meanwhile, the corporation has been the focus of numerous lawsuits regarding its marketing and labeling of opioids.
“There are many players here: the corporation, politicians, doctors, universities, museums. They should all be held accountable,” Alvarez said. “If people feel uncomfortable seeing the Sackler name, they should speak up.”
The spoon installed in front of Purdue — an “exhibit” that lasted about two hours until Stamford public works employees hauled off the artwork — is still in police custody. Alvarez said when he gets the sculpture back he will add it to the gallery exhibit, which opened with a bang. After news of his arrest got out, 1,000 people showed up at the gallery for the show’s opening. Openings usually attract 400 people or fewer, he said.
Alvarez said the traditional way of punishing pharmaceutical companies — with big fines — isn’t good enough. As a result of a 2007 federal lawsuit targeting the labeling and marketing of OxyContin, Purdue paid a $600 million fine and three top-level executives were convicted of criminal charges.
“It’s not a fine that does it. They’re playing the public with that. The big fine is agreed upon behind closed doors by the big boy network. People hear ‘millions, holy crap,’ but these people have made billions. What good is that? We want to send these people behind bars.”
Other Artists In ‘Opiod’
Matthew Paul Cleary’s biological parents died as a result of heroin addiction, and he used various drugs as a youth. He was inspired by his mother and father’s tragedy to create his three-piece work, seen in the Stamford exhibit. One piece, Cleary says, depicts a “community of lost spirits” to which his parents belonged. A diptych next to that work shows two skulls covered with a bright, colorful curtain. The third piece is a twisted, stunted tree branch, to symbolize addicts’ children.
Cleary, 45, said the start of his parents’ addictions predated the introduction of OxyContin, but he considers them both “victims of the irresponsible marketing of opioids.”
“OxyContin was introduced at a time when my father was in a methadone program, doing his best to confront his addiction,” Cleary said. “After OxyContin overflowed the market, my father found it very easy to obtain at various local pill mills.”
He added that Arthur Sackler’s success at marketing his products in the 1960s inspired other pharmaceutical companies to follow suit with aggressive marketing campaigns, “which began a brutal cycle of profit over people’s well-being.
“Make no mistake that Purdue Pharma and corporations like them are accountable for unnecessary deaths across this entire country including the death of my parents,” he said.
Clinton Deckert's artwork shows demons rising from a nightmare landscape. It is part of the Stamford exhibit "Opioid: Express Yourself." (Clinton Deckert)
Clinton Deckert of Southington contributed two works, one a black-and-white of demons rising from a nightmare landscape, the other, called “Feeding the Beast,” a malevolent yellow eye staring out from a dark background.
“What is good for society must outweigh the driving forces of greed and profit,” Deckert said. “The medical field, legislature, law enforcement and especially the pharmaceutical companies must work in tandem to resolve this crisis.”
Artist Ben Quesnel said the opioid epidemic has taken a toll on his own circle.
“I’ve lost friends to it. I’ve had a couple close friends able to get themselves out of it,” he said. “It’s like #metoo. Everybody knows somebody in this situation.”
In response to the epidemic, Quesnel created the found-object piece “Prescribed Ruins,” a wooden structure resembling a wall ripped out of a bathroom, complete with two-by-fours, wall tiling and a medicine cabinet. The configuration of beams mimics Purdue HQ’s modernist architectural design. The medicine cabinet’s mirror reflects the second part of the exhibit: 17,000 clay pieces resembling pills, scattered on the floor of the Alvarez gallery. “I call that part of the piece ‘Take Two,’ like it says on the pill bottle,” he said.
John J. Bedoya’s oil-on-canvas of opium poppies is shredded at the bottom of the canvas, to suggest the ruination caused by the product of the flowers.
Lee Tal made an American flag, painted it black and crossed it out with a bar. Alvarez explained that work:
“Americans of the future will look at this era and ask, ‘how the hell did they let this happen?”
Other artists whose works are in the show are Antuan Rodriguez, Nathan Lewis and Jason Werner.
OPIOID: EXPRESS YOURSELFis at Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford St. in Stamford, until July 30. flalvarezgallery.com.
As a protest to the opioid crisis, artist Domenic Esposito and gallerist Fernando Luis Alvarez (speaking) placed a spoon sculpture in front of the Purdue Pharma building in Stamford early Friday morning."
Educator, scholar and thought leader Dr. Michael Hynes works as a public school superintendent of schools on Long Island and advocates the importance of a holistic approach to educating children. He emphasizes the importance of play and recess in schools and yoga and mindfulness in the classroom, is a public school advocate and university lecturer, has published numerous articles and been featured on several podcasts on school leadership. Hynes has focused his work on transforming schools by tapping into Potential Based Education, which focuses on the significance of social, emotional, physical and cognitive development for students.
Hynes received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Bethany College and his doctorate in educational administration from Dowling College. He has undergone professional training to integrate organization learning and school leadership into programs at New York University, Stony Brook University and Harvard University. He has been awarded the “Friend of Education Award” and the “Distinguished Leadership Award” by Phi Delta Kappa.
"Extraordinary superpowers, high-flying villains and fearless, world-saving heroes are the stuff of countless comic books. But the newest star to hit the comic circuit is different than most.
Michael is a comic book character with autism - a hero with a mathematical mind, artistic gift and an abundance of compassion. Face Value Comics says he is the first"...
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, ...
"The annual “winterim” trip to San Diego taken by the seventh and eighth graders at Alexander Dawson School in Lafayette, Colo., will be missing one element this year. The students will no longer be visiting SeaWorld, thanks to the efforts of one intrepid eighth grader named Phoebe Goldstein.
Goldstein, a longtime opponent of whale and dolphin captivity, had heard of other schools nearby that took field trips to the marine park. When she heard that her own school was planning a trip, she was shocked — and driven to action."...
..."If you live in San Francisco, California, then you may be lucky enough to come across the art of Andres Amador. He doesn’t paint or sculpt. He prefers a medium that is temporary but absolutely beautiful: a sandy beach at low tide. He uses a rake to create works of art that can be bigger than 100,000 sq. ft."
"He spends hours creating these intricate masterpieces, knowing that the tide will soon come in and wash away his work forever.
For Andres, his art is “more about the process and less about the result.”"
Tyler is an 8 year old boy living with autism. His family contacted us because he loves Woodstock Chimes and has the gift of amazing musical acuity. See more...
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