The Education Committee of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, a standing committee of the Kravis Center’s Board of Directors, recently welcomed educator Dr. Mary Palmer as part of its seasonal lecture series highlighting the value of arts in education.
The Kravis Center’s arts education department oversees 20 programs for students of all ages, and since opening in 1992, more than 2.2 million local students have experienced a theater, music or dance performance at the Kravis Center.
Palmer is an Orlando-based educational and arts consultant who specializes in working with schools, community artists, arts organizations, students, and parents to help integrate arts education into school programs. She met with 25 Committee members in the Kravis Center’s Shapiro Founders’ Room and shared research showing the correlation between arts education and higher academic achievement in schools.
“The word ‘integrate’ comes from the Latin ‘integrare,’ or to ‘make whole,’” Palmer said. “When we integrate the arts with other aspects of the school curriculum and our lives, we make it more full, more whole.”
Bryant Sims, Mary Palmer (Photo by Mary Stucchi)
Palmer shared U.S. Department of Education findings that the arts reach students who are not otherwise being reached, particularly at-risk children; the arts reach students in unique ways, therefore helping students with differing learning styles; the arts connect students to themselves and one another by fostering collaboration and the arts provide additional challenge and stimulus for those students already considered successful.
Palmer was joined by other local educators working to integrate arts in education. Edrick Rhodes, arts education program planner for the School District of Palm Beach County and Samika Satterthwaite, manager of the district’s Arts Integration Cohort Project, spoke about a four-year Department of Education grant to improve math and reading scores through exposure to the arts underway at four Title I schools.
In addition, Dr. Susan Hyatt, director of Blue Planet Writer’s Room, which collaborates during the school year with the Kravis Center through its Afterschool Program, discussed how her organization’s teaching artists and writers use artistic collaborations with schools overseas to help local students learn about other cultures and improve their “global confidence.”
Dr. Mary Palmer’s lecture was the second in the series. In November, the Education Committee, chaired by Dr. Barbara Golden, welcomed Dr. Robert Avossa, superintendent of the School District of Palm Beach County. Avossa, who was the inaugural guest for the new speaker series in 2015, shared his updated goals for the school district and his vision leading into 2017 and beyond.
And in February, the speakers’ series concluded with an appearance by Robert Morgan, Actor in the S*T*A*R Series presentation of Morgan’s Journey, who hosted a post-performance conversation with the Kindergarten through 2nd grade student audience and the Committee members. An inventive journey of self-discovery, Morgan’s Journey explores themes of love and the true meaning of friendship and happiness.
To learn more about the Kravis Center’s educational programs by visiting www.kravis.org/education to view and download a copy of the 2015-1016 Educational Programs Brochure. To help support the Kravis Center’s education mission, please call the Development Department at 561-651-4320 or visit www.kravis.org and click on Ways to Give.