Qatar
Foundation
Innovations
in Education: the Art and Science Partnership
2004, Doha, Qatar
Conference website: http://www.qf.org.qa.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University
mosher@svsu.edu
The Innovations in Education conference
was held in October 2003 in Doha, Qatar,
where several universities from the United
States have instituted satellite campuses
or programs in Dohas Education City.
The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science
and Community Development has now published
the papers presented there. The conference
began with a welcome from co-organizer
Her Highness Sheika Mozah Bint Nasser
Al Missned, the Chairperson of the Quatar
Foundation, who then turned the floor
over to her co-organizer, Harriet Mayor
Fulbright, Chair of the International
Child Art Foundation and Editor of ChildArt
magazine. Fulbright drew upon her experience
in English language teaching in several
international settings that relied upon
the arts--song, dance, photographsto
make words and phrases most memorable
to children. She affirmed how, by making
artworks, students' risk-taking leads
them to a better sense of self, identity
and community. Once the child artists
have envisioned and built something tangible,
something that they can see, its effects
are positive on all aspects of their classroom
work. Eldon Katter, editor of School Arts
magazine, delivered a well-honed list
that answers any doubters' questions "What
Do the Arts Do Best?" Steve Seidel documented
the Harvard School of Education's Project
Zero, where Howard Gardner developed a
theory of our multiple intelligences that
come into play in any milieu where problem
solving is valued.
Alluding to the diverse works of Leonardo
and the optics of Newton, Judith M. Burton
limned the interdependence of the arts
and sciences, and students' need for mastery
of two symbol systems of equal importance.
She called for a true partnership, not
one that leaves the arts as poor handmaidens
in service to a scientific pedagogy. Leonardo
Reviews contributor, Amy Ione, explored
fellow artist M.C. Escher and the impact
upon him of his visit to the Alhambra
in 1936. The experience, reinforced when
he read a paper by mathematician George
Polyna, led Escher to explore tesselations
in the subsequent four decades of his
artistic career. Escher's artwork subsequently
inspired mathematician Sir Roger Penrose,
crystallographer A.V. Shubnikov, chemist
Nadrian C. Seemen, and legions of secondary
school math (Mrs. Koen at my high school!)
and art teachers too numerous to count.
The conference attendeeand
now readeris given a model
program for arts integrated into the teaching
of science developed by the Arts Council
of Richmond Virginia. Two papers on the
East Carolina University Art and Math
Project, include examples of student artwork
in their curriculum that begins with Locating
Points, and Symmetry, and moves through
Computer Skills (kids doing simple programming,
always an accomplishment) to Tesselations,
Perspective, and Topology. The curriculum
of "Art, Biology &Investigation" discussed
by B. Stephen Carpenter II is illustrated
with a cluttered screenshot of a hypertext
version of his research. While its breadth
and linkage is clearly well-served by
hypermedia, it would have been more valuable
to this volume if its several diagrams
were each shown individually in readable
form, rather than solely in this pile-up.
Carpenter's essay demonstrates much, but
the unfortunate graphic only says Yep,
you sure can have lots o windows
open on a computer screen.
Dartmouth College professor Petr Janata's
"Music and Neuroscience" shows demonstrable
results of music upon brain functioning,
while Gordon L. Shaw found a "Music Math
Causal Connection". The author of Keeping
Mozart in Mind calls for the fundamental
rethinking math and science education
for young children. Wait a minute, weren't
music and mathematics linked in the schooling
of classical Greece? And Renaissance Italy?
Shaw is also an advocate of the design
of educational video games, and asks us
to call them exactly that, despite parental
and administrative prejudices against
the medium.
One is heartened to see this educational
research and reporting coalescing in a
conference in the Middle East, from whence
it is always nice to receive good news.
May Arab nationsand all nations,
including my United Statesinvest
in education and creativity, rather than
war and political repression. May the
Qatar Foundation continue to support valuable
work, scholarly communication and publication.