ODE Arts Education Updates 

Arts Ed Spotlight:

Honoring Our Diversity

In April, we honor various cultural traditions and heritages of our students and communities. Some of the important cultural celebrations honored in April include Ramadan, Rama Navami, Easter, Passover, and the Gathering of Nations. Awareness of these celebrations creates a space for learning about each others’ strengths and cultural assets, often integrated with various art forms, which can build community in your art classroom. 

To this end, The New York International Children’s Film Festival hosts lesson plans that explore important themes including diversity and inclusion, through the powerful medium of film. 

FilmEd Lesson Plans are a film-based K-8 curriculum designed to provide meaningful arts engagement and bolster arts education, support media literacy and broaden literacy studies, hone critical thinking skills, foster social-emotional learning, and share short films, in a range of styles and genres, that feature diverse stories and storytelling for classroom use to spark shared dialogue and mutual understanding. Consider using these lessons with your K-8 students to promote the recognition of all student experiences and build community within your classroom, while learning through the arts. 

Here are some additional resources to teach around just a few of the important recognitions and celebrations in the month of April:

April is Arab American Heritage Month:

• These resources from Learning for Justice will help educators celebrate Arab identity, counter negative stereotypes, teach about Arab history and cultures, and ensure an inclusive environment that supports Arab American students this month and throughout the year
• Explore contributions from the Arab World in this virtual exhibit from the Arab American National Museum. 

April is Genocide Awareness Month: 

It is never easy teaching about difficult histories and events with students, such as genocide, especially as current tragedies are unfolding. The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education has created some resources to help with this, such as the Holocaust, An Oregon Perspective digital experience which utilizes photographs, oral histories, and written testimony to share the experiences of eighteen local Holocaust survivors and liberators. Additional resources for teaching about genocide through the arts include:

• Art and Remembrance Lesson Plans
• Music as a Survival Tool from Facing History & Ourselves
• OJMCHE Remote Learning Resources including Art in Response to Loss, Hardship, and Oppression

April 22nd is Earth Day: 

Earth Day gives us an opportunity to celebrate the planet we live on and is observed internationally in more than 192 countries. Some resources to advocate for defending our Earth through the arts include: 

• Artists For the Earth: Learning Through Art from Earthday.org
• PBS Learning Media: Celebrating Earth Day
• Strategies to connect to transdisciplinary and STEAM learning with your students through Facilitating Emancipatory and Justice-Centered Environmental and Climate Learning

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk: https://www.pexels.com/photo/students-in-an-art-class-8382377/

The Oregon Department of Education’s (ODE) Well-Rounded Access Program (WRAP) is beginning its implementation phase, and one of the first activities is to develop both a STEAM and Arts  Program Toolkit. The WRAP team is currently seeking input from school administrators, educators, families, and community partners to help determine what would be useful to include within these toolkits.  The goals of these toolkits are:

• STEAM Toolkit: To help schools and community partners deepen their understanding of what STEAM is and how to best implement these practices within their schools.
• Arts Toolkit: To help schools and communities understand the importance of a comprehensive arts program and help schools build toward this vision. 

If you have feedback you’d like to share, please complete the following surveys by May 13, 2022.  Each survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

• STEAM Toolkit Survey
• Arts Toolkit Survey

If you prefer to share your feedback in another way or would like to discuss this project with the WRAP Team, please email ODEWRCoursesGrant@state.or.us.  Thank you for your time and consideration!  Our goal is to have the STEAM and Arts Promising Practices Toolkit as an available resource during the 2022-23 School Year.

Grants and Youth Opportunities 

Educator Grant Opportunities:

• The Oregon Arts Commission has opened their window for Arts Learning Grants! The purpose of Arts Learning grants is to support high-quality projects that:
  • Provide a responsive opportunity for learning in and through the arts to benefit K-12 students;
  • Foster exchange of knowledge between artists and educators; and
  • Impact the achievement, skills and/or attitudes of learners.

The application deadline for Arts Learning Grants is May 2, 2022. See website for grant guidelines and details. 

• National Dance Education Organization | Professional Development Scholarship | Application deadline April 30, 2022
• Portland Art Museum’s Miller Family Free Days this spring are announced - March 20, April 24, and June 19. Find about more about the program!
• Information about ODE 2022 Summer Learning Grants has been released, to support summer programming including the arts. Share with your administrator!

Youth Opportunities:

U.S. Department of Education Nationwide Call for Student Performing Artists

The U.S. Department of Education is seeking student performing artists (such as bands/marching bands, choirs, color guards, dancers, drumlines, poets/spoken word artists, soloists, theatrical performers) currently enrolled in institutions of elementary, secondary, or post-secondary education or accredited trade schools, who exemplify resilience, diversity, and excellence and are interested in showcasing their talent, virtually or in-person, at internal and external Department-hosted events, as well as awards and recognition ceremonies, and professional development trainings that support the Department’s programs, priorities, and initiatives and social media campaigns. No formal training or experience is necessary. 

Oregon Open Learning 

The Oregon Open Learning Hub is a digital resource repository and collaboration space for educators, administrators, and other educational partners to curate, create, and remix open educational resources (OER). The Hub is a portal to over 50,000 openly licensed resources available on OER Commons, searchable by grade level, subject, and standard. 

The Oregon Open Learning team will host a statewide OER workshop on Tuesday, May 10th from 4:00 - 5:30 pm. This virtual workshop will be an interactive professional learning event that will provide participants an opportunity to learn about open educational resources (OER) and the Oregon Open Learning Hub, Oregon’s K-12 repository for OER. 

Register for the event here and share the opportunity with your colleagues. Contact the Oregon Open Learning Team at OregonOpenLearning@ode.oregon.gov with any questions. To receive the Oregon Open Learning quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Oregon Arts Group on the Oregon Open Learning Hub

The Oregon Arts Group on the Oregon Open Learning Hub is a new digital resource sharing and collaboration space for arts educators. Educators are able to access resources that are standards aligned, and contribute high quality resources to the group. Check out the Oregon Arts Group and join to stay connected and share with other educators. The digital resource bank is in its early stages, and will continue to grow.