Guest Post! Visual Arts: A Major, Not an Extra

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a session at the Educational Theater Collaborative's (ETC) Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth, NH with my colleague and friend, Tiffany Dube. One of the "challenges" we had for the participants was exploring blog writing and I offered a posting on my blog to get them started. This post by Frank Sharlow talks about the charter school he is a part of--something that he feels really excited about. These posts were generated by the participants at the conference and reflect their thoughts and beliefs. I'm just happy to post! Enjoy!

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I have had the tremendous opportunity to be part of a chartered high school based on the arts in Derry, New Hampshire called Granite State Arts Academy. I was hired in August of 2014 as the visual arts department coordinator for the school.  We are currently in our first year of classes and building the visual arts department has been both rewarding and challenging.

Each student who attends our school is required to major in one of the arts provided at the school: visual arts, dance, music, or theatre.  It has been wonderful to work in an environment where being the art teacher is considered being a major and not an extra.

We are currently busy planning and building our curricula for year two at GSAA and are eager and excited to provide in-depth arts education to students in New Hampshire.