VSA INSTITUTE
Addressing the Needs of Diverse Learners Through the Arts
Pre-Conference Program
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

This participatory workshop will explore the different ways in which students with (and without) disabilities learn through the arts. The goal is to give participants functional and realistic strategies that can be applied immediately in classroom and educational practices. Presenters will focus on more than one art form and curriculum connections, and the wisdom amongst the participants in the room will be honored.

In this session:

Educators: Will explore how to know your students better, adapt arts activities for all students, and include your personal creativity.

Artists: Will enhance your arts/education toolkit, and more comfortably adapt what you know and do to address all students' learning.

Cultural Organization Administrators: Will better understand how an effective cross-disciplinary project can unite a team of otherwise disparate individuals from previously disconnected communities.

Education Administrators: Will identify a variety of instructional activities, and will enhance their understanding of students with special needs.

Community, Patrons, & Parents: Will be able to identify a variety of instructional activities, and enhance their understanding of students with special needs

Facilitators:

Ms. Jaehn Clare
Director of Artistic Development
VSA arts of Georgia

Jaehn (pronounced "Jane") Clare is a trained professional theater artist, with more than thirty years experience as an actor, director, producer, playwright, touring artist, teaching artist and arts administrator. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Minnesota, and an M.A. in Dramatic Literature from the University of Essex. Ms. Clare’s first original one-act play, Belle’s on Wheels, was written as her Master’s dissertation project and is an autobiographical piece depicting her survival of a 1980 spinal cord injury. Tail Tell Tale, her second original stage play, premiered in 2002. Ms. Clare has written for Melpomene magazine, and her essay “I Wasn’t Born a Mermaid” is included in From There to Here, an anthology of essays written by individuals who have survived spinal cord injury. Since 1986, Ms. Clare has been active as a disability awareness educator and trainer, offering disability awareness and inclusion workshops in a variety of community settings. Ms. Clare was selected for the 2006 inaugural class of VSA arts’ Teaching Artist Fellows, and has performed at three International VSA arts Festivals (Brussels 1994; Los Angeles 1999; Washington, D.C. 2004). Ms. Clare works with the Tony© Award winning Alliance Theatre, as a teaching artist with the Georgia Wolf Trap Program, and performs with the Educational Theatre Programs of Kaiser Permanente of Georgia. Ms. Clare has been a staff member of VSA arts of Georgia since 2000, and currently serves as director of artistic development.

Mr. Russell Granet
Director
Arts Education Resource

Granet started Arts Education Resource after seventeen years of working with New York City non-profits.  His most recent position was at the Center for Arts Education (CAE): The NYC Annenberg Challenge for Arts Education. He joined CAE in 1998 and held the position of Director of Professional Development and Peer Exchange until starting Arts Education Resource in 2007.  While there he developed workshops on arts assessment and integration, partnership and collaboration, and, in association with the Annenberg Institute, created a leadership institute for principals. Russell’s career has been greatly influenced by working closely with NYC special education teachers while working as a teaching artist with New York University’s Creative Arts Team.  He has been on faculty for VSA arts for their national and international arts institutes. Additionally, he has consulted for school districts, public and independent schools, and many of the leading cultural and arts institutes locally, nationally, and internationally. 

Location: Crown Plaza Hotel
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Time: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm

Registration:

Click HERE to Register Online!

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