Last month, three teaching artists were in Chicago to share ideas, best practice and strategies on bringing arts to the whole curriculum. The visit was part of an exchange programme in partnership with the Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP) Columbia College Chicago and builds on the Scottish Arts Council’s work on the Arts Across the Curriculum programme.
 
Teaching artists from Chicago will be making a return visit to Scotland in June. Meanwhile, poet Elspeth Murray shares her experiences from the trip.

‘I valued the opportunity to observe classroom practice with my poet partner, Chicago artist  Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein. Since I first heard about ‘arts integration’ – combining artistic disciplines with unlikely seeming curricular subjects – I’d been fascinated with the idea of doing maths with poetry. Sorry – in USA terms that should be math and poetry. The students at Crown Academy in Chicago think it’s kinda weird that in Scotland we say maths. But they were pretty game for combining maths as taught by their teacher with poetry as taught by Amanda.

http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/artsinscotland/education/features/artseducationinchicago.aspx