Florida Alliance for Arts Education

In the continuing saga of The Radical Platypus (www.radicalplatypus.com), Jim Brazell and I along with our pal Jud French from the Digital Media Alliance of Florida gave a talk at the leadership Summit for the Florida Alliance for Arts Education last Friday in Lakeland. These are educators who have embraced the results you get when the arts aren’t “extra” in school. This was a perfect audience for our STEM into TEAMS discussion. Basically, when you add the Arts to Science Technology Engineering and Math, you’re talking about a whole human mind again. Jim does a fantastic collection of stories about how real-world results are happening with this kind of integration. I talk a bit about the ten keys to sustaining an innovative culture and how the next generation needs to be made up of polymaths like Leonardo Da Vinci and not so much micro-experts. You can look Polymath up on wikipedia! There are a LOT of similarities between our own time and the early renaissance and we’re talking about how the educational programs we use now will determine our future success as a species. Jud rounded it out with some clear and objective information about Florida and its embrace of the media arts in particular. It’s always great to be around visionary educators. Also, The Harrison School in Lakeland is an awesome performing arts center. I came home and told my 8th grade actress about it and now she wants to move to Lakeland!