Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource Today
Maverick American maestro Leonard Bernstein once said that “a work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”
That power to cultivate critical thinking is part of why Bernstein was a champion of arts integration, an innovative approach many educators are exploring these days as a creative way to amplify student learning amid an era of steep learning loss.
Certainly, Mike Stone, a veteran music teacher who cut his teeth on the baritone horn in the fourth grade, is a devotee of the practice. Coordinator of the visual and performing arts with the Bakersfield City School District, Stone is planning to use Proposition 28 funds, which are slated to arrive in schools in February, to bolster his already robust arts education program with 13 new teachers, all devoted to the benefits of art…
