I usually describe myself as “just a kid from Far Rockaway.” It’s sort of a salute to the modest beach town on the Rockaway peninsula where I grew up. A few blocks away from our house in the Bayswater area was the Gustave Hartman Orphan Home. The kids who lived there were homeless. They had […]
As a kid, I was a musical disappointment. My mother, a proud teacher, tried every pedagogical tactic–first, of course, piano lessons; later the clarinet, then the saxophone and finally a bass clarinet, hardly a lady-like choice. Then there were the Saturday young people’s concerts at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Leonard Bernstein. At the […]
Back in the day, teaching was one of the very few career paths open to women. That was not for me, I told my parents. Teachers work harder and more creatively than anyone I know. They do this in crowded classrooms, with public address systems blaring directions and with fewer resources than they […]
What’s in a name? There’s a new upbeat movement afoot in education circles called Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). It’s a “wishful thinking” piece of legislation in which the expected outcome is right up there in the program’s name. Near as I can tell, it does not carry the baggage of the program it replaced […]
Counting my blessings is a mental exercise I do during the holidays. I don’t plan it. It just seems to pop into my head along with the strains of “Let It Snow.” This year, perhaps triggered by the loss and restoration of county funds for the arts, I began to count our collective blessings as […]
Next week, starting on September 13, ArtsWestchester will be celebrating National Arts in Education week along with arts groups from around the country. The Congressional Resolution creating this important celebration contains a lot of meaningful words about the importance of the arts in our children’s future. It states that “Arts education, comprising a rich array […]
To me, words are quite wonderful. Some are even paintings in the sense that you look at the words and get an immediate visual. So the sadness and unintended consequences conveyed by the words “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) are quite visceral to me. Now Congress is transforming this NCLB legislation into the inspirational “Every […]
At 8 a.m. on a very snowy morning, fifty business leaders gathered at the Ritz Carlton Hotel to hear Robert Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts talk about the value of partnering with the arts. The morning was dedicated to helping ArtsWestchester (ArtsW) develop 50 new business partnerships for it’s 50th anniversary year […]
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