Senior Honors Art Students Use Tumblr as Project Workspace

Upper School Honors Art Seniors are in the midst of an intensive artist in residency project guided by GA Alum and professional designer, Clay Kippen. He has been working with our students here on campus, through online support, and through media conferencing to help seniors develop new insight into their creativity and art making in general.  Emphasizing design thinking processes, collaboration, and play, students are making art in response to one prompt per day through the month of April. You can see what our artists are making each day by clicking here.

What We Are Reading

"In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today’s scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention.

Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world.

Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on Smart Practices—mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not."  from the author page at Amazon.

What We Are Reading

Tim Brown is the CEO and President of IDEO, his work in Design Thinking and innovation has made IDEO the most sought after design and innovation firm in the world.  He is a regular participant at the World Economic Forum and his talks Serious Play and Think Big appear on TED.  You can see a video of Brown talking about his book "Change by Design" by clicking here.

What We Are Reading

"From the bestselling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity Imagine. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,” Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single “gift” possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively. Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, and daydreaming productively, then he takes us out of our own heads to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective. We’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addiction of poets. We’ll meet a bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. We’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar designed its office space to get the most out of its talent. Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world." from, www.jonahlehrer.com.

What We Are Reading

Paul Tough, contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, former Senior Editor of This American Life, and author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, looks at character as the most important asset to a child's success in  How Children Succeed.  From his website:


"The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control."

What We Are Reading

With over twenty books translated into thirty languages, Howard Gardner, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Senior Director of Project Zero, has been at the forefront of innovation education for decades.  His theory of multiple intelligences outlined in 1983 was groundbreaking establishing the idea that we have different ways of learning and processing.  In Five Minds for The Future he details the mindsets the future demands of students in schools today.

What We Are Reading

Tom Kelley is the general manager of IDEO (a design and innovation consulting firm) and author of several best sellers on thinking an innovation. His lessons on using innovation to transform a business culture and strategic thinking has found easy application to all institutional cultures including schools. When he is not crafting prose from lessons learned from IDEO's meteoric rise in the field of innovation and design,  like everyone else at IDEO, he  cuts foam core alongside clients and designers as part of the firm's brainstorming and prototyping efforts.

What We Are Reading

Keri Smith is a self proclaimed Guerilla Artist. She is also the author and illustrator of many best selling books on creativity, innovation, and inspiration.  How to Be An Explorer of the World is one of her early books, a guided journal that encourages readers to analyze the world like scientists and artists as if they are seeing it for the first time. Upper school faculty and students will be working with this book and a variety of others by Smith that will be profiled here in the coming months.  In the meantime you can learn more about Keri Smith at her website and blog. 

What We Are Reading

In his groundbreaking book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, Harvard Professor Tony Wagner explores the best ways to develop the innovative capacity of our students. Bringing readers on a tour of our education system and the most forward thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces, he provides a road map for innovation and change for educators and parents alike. You can read more about Tony Wagner, innovation, and creating change on his blog.