Tulsa School for the Arts?

[Kiah]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

This is a solution to a non-existent problem.  There is no lack of starving artists, effusive drama queens, or interpretive dancers.

I think you're wrong about this.  OSSM, for example, doesn't just take a handful of random kids and nudge them toward the sciences.  It finds and recruits incredibly brilliant (intimidatingly brilliant) kids, whose talents are being neglected in places like Tishamingo and Gotebo, and exposes them to equally brilliant faculty who can challenge them and cultivate their amazing natural abilities.

I dare say there are equally brilliant, naturally gifted artists in places like Cache and Hartshorne, whose natural gifts could be cultivated at a world-class institution modeled after OSSM.

Labeling potential students as basket weavers and drama queens is like labeling OSSM students as tinkerers and small engine mechanics.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

This is a solution to a non-existent problem.  There is no lack of starving artists, effusive drama queens, or interpretive dancers.

I don't think the proposal is intended to fix a "problem," but to provide more thorough training to kids with the interest and talent.  

In a way, there is a problem, in that public schools have drastically cut visual/vocal/performing arts instruction over the past 20 years or so, and this would help restore excellent instruction and guidance to the most promising in the fields.  When I was a child in TPS in the mid-1960s, we had mandatory daily music and speech classes in the 4th-6th grades where we were taught to read and transcribe music on paper, taught small plays and performance thereof, etc.  I think these things are sadly non-existent today.  What it did for me was foster my talent for keyboard music at an early age, and propel me to private organ instruction.  I never became a professional player by any means, but still enjoy playing organ music nearly every day, some 40 years later.  It has added immensely to my quality of life.  Kids with talents in the arts should be encouraged to pusue them.

[TURobY]

Okay, I focused on performing arts all through high school. I'm not a drama queen... I'm a systems analyst. [:O]

[aoxamaxoa]

Brady district?

Magnet status?

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

Magnet status?

Not a "magnet school" per se, which are formed by and serve individual school districts and whose primary purpose is to encourage voluntary racial integration.  The proposed school would be open to students from all over the state, not just the Tulsa district.

My guess is that prospective students would apply for admission and audition or submit examples of their work before an admitting panel of judges; compete against each other for the available 200 slots, much like it is done at schools like Juilliard.  The best and most promissing would win admittance.

[USRufnex]

If the school is put next to OSU-Tulsa... will OSU-Tulsa start offering art/music depts and degree options?

If a school with strong arts depts like my alma mater (Okla. City Univ) existed at the OSU-Tulsa sight north of the IDL, this idea would make alot more sense...

But per usual... [B)]

[chlfan]

Starting your own master race Tim?

Sounds like you're one tolerant, accepting human- good luck with that, really.

[tim huntzinger]

Look, I realize that my opinion is going to chaffe some hides, but am not going to be drawn into a myriad threads of debate on the issue.

We waste a lot of time and effort in achieving our education goals is my chief point. Our education system is wasteful at a time when we need to maximize efficiencies.

I appreciate that it takes all kinds to make a well-balanced society, and believe in the unlimited potential of mankind.

[Double A]

This is a waste of taxpayer dollars to build and operate a new school for arts, when we already have one. The Tulsa School for Arts and Sciences has been around for years and is arguably one of the best(if not the best) school in the TPS system. Williamson should concentrate on adequately funding the excellent arts school already in existence and fixing the charter school law, instead of throwing tax dollars away on an unnecessary duplication of services.

[pmcalk]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

I think the culinary school spends quite a bit of time studying ways to make healthier meals. I have a good friend who son went through this training and it changed his life.

Having 500 well-trained nutrition-minded and inspired young people enter a workforce with potential for good-paying jobs is a good thing.

Back to the school for visual and performing arts...I agree it is something that we could organize support for.

Here is the information on State Senator Williamson including his contact information. We should first each contact him and let him know of our support.

http://www.oksenate.gov/Senators/biographies/williamson_bio.html

I didn't mean to imply that some people shouldn't be encouraged to go into the culinary arts.  But it is a very limited, and pretty competitive market.  An entire school devoted to such a narrow focus makes no sense to me.  Say you graduate 500 kids a year in culinary arts--do you think that Tulsa could absorb that many chefs, nutritionists, etc....?  Perhaps a school that has that as one option, but not the whole school.

Back to an arts school, to succeed in any type of arts--whether fine or performance, kids really need a state of the art facility to study.  Playing in the highschool band won't get you into Juilliard.  I have known parents who left Tulsa so their children could attend better art schools.  I don't know if OSU offers art classes, but TU has an excellent art program, and ORU has a wonderful music program.

Tim--I have been told by instructors at TCC that all classes transfer seemlessly between TCC, OU & OSU

[Double A]

Williamson estimated that it would take $5 million a year in state funds to operate such a school, which would serve about 200 students.

That's $25,000 per student annually, just to put things in perspective.

[NellieBly]

It has been proven in study after study that children who study the arts do better overall in school. Arts programs have been dropped or reduced in most public schools in recent years. Test scores in recent years have also been on the decline. Is there a correlation? I believe so.

It's kind of ironic, too, that the area's private schools recognized the need to expand their arts programs and invested millions. Holland Hall's arts program is top of the line and Cascia just finished their Performing Arts Center.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by Double A

This is a waste of taxpayer dollars to build and operate a new school for arts, when we already have one. The Tulsa School for Arts and Sciences has been around for years and is arguably one of the best(if not the best) school in the TPS system. Williamson should concentrate on adequately funding the excellent arts school already in existence and fixing the charter school law, instead of throwing tax dollars away on an unnecessary duplication of services.

I think there is a BIIIIIG difference between an arts-oriented school serving the whole state and  TSAS which only serves on of the 17bazillion school districts in oklahoma.

[perspicuity85]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  If we do not want more people in math and sciences than open a school that emphasizes the opposite.

If we want fewer doctors and nurses by all means encourage kids to be sketch artists.  We have a real crisis in education and this move is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

If we want inventors and innovators and to achieve scientific supremacy over our nation's economic competitors this is exactly the wrong way to go.

Republicans, where are you to defend your boy's legislation?

Since when were the arts and sciences mutually exclusive?  Have you ever heard of Da Vinci?  And no, I'm not talking about the Da Vinci Code.
Your comments presume that no one can possibly enjoy math/science and the arts at the same time.  Quite the contrary is true in fact.  Learning studies have shown music and mathematical talents to be in common and complementary in many individuals.  Tulsa already has a very proficient arts culture, to not support it would be a waste.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by perspicuity85

Your comments presume that no one can possibly enjoy math/science and the arts at the same time.  Quite the contrary is true in fact.  Learning studies have shown music and mathematical talents to be in common and complementary in many individuals.  Tulsa already has a very proficient arts culture, to not support it would be a waste.

Never really thought about that correlation before, but it is true for me.  I have been playing keyboard (organ, not piano or synth) for 42 years, since the age of about 8.  Mathematics was always my favorite subject in public school, I took math all the way through calculus in 12th grade, and made A's 90% of the time.
I guess music is the "sound" of mathematics.  The key it is written in, transposing keys, the meter, the harmonics and harmony intricacies, music theory in general are all grounded in mathematical relationships.