ABOUT THE CENTERThe Southeast Center for Education in the Arts, located at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, provides innovative professional development and in arts education and integration for teachers and administrators to enhance teaching and deepen learning. SCEA’s nationally recognized forums, workshops, on-site mentoring, and consulting services create exciting opportunities for personal and professional discovery, nurturing the artist within and fostering the artistry of teaching.
Chattanooga’s commitment to the arts has helped lead a citywide revitalization, drawing artists and art lovers to take up residence, tourists to visit, and the Arts Education Partnership to convene a thought-provoking national forum addressing arts learning without borders.
Scientist and philosopher Isaac Newton observed: “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Today’s learners must embrace complexity, tolerate uncertainty, and manage tension. Habits of mind like these require an interdisciplinary culture of inquiry that fosters integrative thinking, nurtures collaboration, accepts alternative perspectives, and merges various methodologies.
The Fall 2012 National Arts Education Forum will feature collaborative initiatives where people think and work differently – bridging perceived and real boundaries, honoring differences, sharing resources, fusing scientific and artistic practices, invigorating behaviors, and celebrating creativity.
The incubator for these innovations is artistic integrative thinking. Artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci advised us: “Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”