#VCETarts

Thanks to the brilliant leaders in Richmond and the staff at George Mason University I am spending the week in the most intense, meaningful, and motivational professional development opportunity of my career.

What is VCET? Virginia Center for Excellence in Teaching is held for six days on the George Mason campus and continues in the fall. Educators have traveled from all over the state of Virginia to join forces to learn how to become stronger Teacher Leaders. The Academies focus on a different areas:

• STEM
• humanities and language arts
• the fine arts
• interdisciplinary studies

The #artsed Academy started Sunday night with a wonderful dinner and fast tour of the campus. We all got settled into our dorm rooms with anticipation for Monday morning! (Yes, we teachers never stop learning!)
Monday morning we met our fearless leaders who will be guiding us on this journey : Dr. Kimberly Sheridan and Robert Stansbery.

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The day started with a visual metaphor for teaching by Andy Goldsworthy.
Words bounced quickly around the room with educators relating their practice to the powerful image before us. The Portal to Learning:

• Strong Foundation
• Continual
• Diverse
• Focal Point
• Balance

Our big questions of the morning became
       "How can arts be a powerful entry into thinking?"
       "What is the core of my own #artsed beliefs?"
My own beliefs have been evolving over the last few years with the rapid changes happening in our world. The addition of new technology and ways to help bring artistic behaviors in my classroom have me looking to the horizon. My focus is turned to the outward searching, looking beyond the building blocks that may seem familiar toward the framework that will guide me in the year ahead. In the months ahead I am looking forward to this process of finding a clear vision of my VCET project and the powerful changes that Teacher Leadership can help build.

I would love to hear how you might interpret the sculpture as a metaphor for your teaching?

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