Arts in Schools Essay

Arts in Schools Essay Arts in Schools Essay A child’s education cannot rely on reading and math alone. A wide range of educational opportunities need to be made available to a child to allow them to explore their talents and interests, whether it be through arts programs, athletics programs, or other activities outside of subjects on standardized tests. Not every student wants to be an engineer or scientist and those children should not be denied opportunities in their education. Creativity in the classroom plays a big role in how children involve themselves in their studies, social lives, and home lives. It is an important part of education and should be valued more. Many people believe that the arts are a waste of time and aren’t going to land you a stable job in the future. What they don’t realize is that having knowledge in different arts, benefits students in different parts of their lives. Including in the classroom where they learn math and science. Not only does having knowledge in the arts stimula te and develop the imagination and critical thinking, but it also refines cognitive and creative skills. Whilst other students might solve a problem based solely on logic, students with a knowledge in the arts can look at that same problem both logistically, and creatively providing them with more insight on the problem. Arts knowledge also has a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of every child, and has proven to help level the learning field across socio-economic boundaries. It strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, adds to overall academic achievement and school success. When a student is involved in artistic thinking, it truly teaches them life skills, such as developing an informed perception, articulating a vision, learning to solve problems, and make decisions. Not only this, but it also aids in building self-confidence and self-discipline, developing the ability to imagine what might be, and accepting responsibility to complete tasks from start to finish. Being in any type of arts program, whether it’s acting, or dancing, film, or general art, self-confidence and self-discipline are strongly provided. With open arms, art programs accept any student that might be having a hard time in school, or at home, and gives them something to be proud of. Whether it be a painting they painted or performing in the school play, being in an art program lets you use your passion and soul to make or do something that you are proud of. By painting, training, or practicing hard, the student achieves their goal using self-discipline for in the arts, you can only be as good as you yourself try. Art programs throughout the world give any students the right to speak what is on their minds and in their hearts and to not be judged, but praised for it. Creativity, soul, heart, passion, hard-work are just some examples of what the arts can give back to you. Having art programs in schools is essential. A very intelligent man named Ken Robinso n made a delightful speech regarding art programs in schools on the website TED.com. Besides being British and hilarious, he makes substantial points and tells such wonderful funny stories! An influential quote from his speech is "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you're not going to come up with anything original." This is quite a true statement. He isn't saying that being creative necessarily means that you are wrong. He is just saying that when being creative, you're willing to take the chance and not care about the results, your answer will be genuine and unique. One extraordinary point he makes in the speech is that as we grow older we are being "educated out of our creativity†. As we go through school we quickly learn that mistakes are terrible, and strive for perfection. Memorizing facts, knowing systems and orders, but what happened to the creativity we had as kids? One last point that he makes, might not be completely true, but is funny and did make some sense. â₠¬Å"Public education is made for making

Obsidian - Volcanic Glass Prized for Stone Tool Making

Obsidian - Volcanic Glass Prized for Stone Tool Making The volcanic glass called obsidian was highly prized in prehistory where ever it was found. The glassy material comes in a range of colors from black to green to bright orange, and it is found everywhere rhyolite-rich volcanic deposits are found. Most obsidian is a deep rich black, but, for example, pachuca obsidian, from a source in Hidalgo and distributed throughout Mesoamerica during the Aztec period, is a translucent green color with a golden yellow sheen to it. Pico de Orizaba, from a source in southeastern Puebla is almost completely colorless. Obsidian Qualities The qualities that made obsidian a favorite trade item are its shiny beauty, its easily worked fine texture, and the sharpness of its flaked edges. Archaeologists are fond of it because of obsidian hydration-a relatively secure (and relatively low cost) way to date the period an obsidian tool was last flaked. Sourcing obsidianthat is to say, discovering where the raw stone from a particular obsidian artifact came fromis typically conducted through trace element analysis. Although obsidian is always made up of volcanic rhyolite, each deposit has slightly different amounts of trace elements in it. Scholars identify the chemical fingerprint of each deposit through such methods as X-ray fluorescence or neutron activation analysis  and then compare that to what is found in an obsidian artifact. Alca Obsidian Alca is  a type of obsidian that is  solid and banded black, gray, maroon brown and bottled black maroon brown, that is found in volcanic deposits in the Andes mountains between 3700-5165 meters (12,140-16,945 feet) above sea level. The largest known concentrations of Alca are at the east rim of the Cotahuasi Canyon and in the Pucuncho basin. The Alca sources are among the most extensive sources of obsidian in South America; only the Laguna de Maule source in Chile and Argentina has comparable exposure.   Three types of Alca, Alca-1, Alca-5 and Alca-7, outcrop on the alluvial fans of the Pucuncho basin. These cannot be discerned with the naked eye, but they can be identified on the basis of geochemical characteristics, identified through ED-XRF and NAA (Rademaker et al. 2013). Stone tool workshops at the sources in the Pucuncho basin have been dated to the Terminal Pleistoceneand stone tools dated to the same 10,000-13,000 year range have been discovered at Quebrada Jaguay on the coast of Peru. Sources For information on dating obsidian ,  see the article on obsidian hydration. See the History of Glass Making, if thats what interests you. For more rock science on the substance, see the geology entry for obsidian. For the heck of it, try the Obsidian Trivia Quiz. Freter A. 1993. Obsidian-hydration dating: Its past, present, and future application in Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 4:285-303. Graves MW, and Ladefoged TN. 1991. The disparity between radiocarbon and volcanic glass dates: New evidence from the island of Lanai, Hawaii. Archaeology in Oceania 26:70-77. Hatch JW, Michels JW, Stevenson CM, Scheetz BE, and Geidel RA. 1990. Hopewell obsidian studies: Behavioral implications of recent sourcing and dating research. American Antiquity 55(3):461-479. Hughes RE, Kay M, and Green TJ. 2002. Geochemical and Microwear Analysis of an Obsidian Artifact from the Brown Bluff Site (3WA10), Arkansas. Plains Anthropologist 46(179). Khalidi L, Oppenheimer C, Gratuze B, Boucetta S, Sanabani A, and al-Mosabi A. 2010. Obsidian sources in highland Yemen and their relevance to archaeological research in the Red Sea region. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(9):2332-2345. Kuzmin YV, Speakman RJ, Glascock MD, Popov VK, Grebennikov AV, Dikova MA, and Ptashinsky AV. 2008. Obsidian use at the Ushki Lake complex, Kamchatka Peninsula (Northeastern Siberia): implications for terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene human migrations in Beringia. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(8):2179-2187. Liritzis I, Diakostamatiou M, Stevenson C, Novak S, and Abdelrehim I. 2004. Dating of hydrated obsidian surfaces by SIMS-SS. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 261(1):51–60. Luglie C, Le Bourdonnec F-X, Poupeau G, Atzeni E, Dubernet S, Moretto P, and Serani L. 2006. Early Neolithic obsidians in Sardinia (Western Mediterranean): the Su Carroppu case. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(3):428-439. Millhauser JK, Rodrà ­guez-Alegrà ­a E, and Glascock MD. 2011. Testing the accuracy of portable X-ray fluorescence to study Aztec and Colonial obsidian supply at Xaltocan, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(11):3141-3152. Moholy-Nagy H, and Nelson FW. 1990. New data on sources of obsidian artifacts from Tikal, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica 1:71-80. Negash A, Shackley MS, and Alene M. 2006. Source provenance of obsidian artifacts from the Early Stone Age (ESA) site of Melka Konture, Ethiopia. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:1647-1650. Peterson J, Mitchell DR, and Shackley MS. 1997. The social and economic contexts of lithic procureent: obsidian from classic-period Hohokam sites. American Antiquity 62(2):213-259. Rademaker K, Glascock MD, Kaiser B, Gibson D, Lux DR, and Yates MG. 2013. Multi-technique geochemical characterization of the Alca obsidian source, Peruvian Andes. Geology 41(7):779-782. Shackley MS. 1995. Sources of archaeological obsidian in the Greater American southwest: An update and quantitative analysis. American Antiquity 60(3):531-551. Spence MW. 1996. Commodity or gift: Teotihuacan obsidian in the Maya region. Latin American Antiquity 7(1):21-39. Stoltman JB, and Hughes RE. 2004. Obsidian in Early Woodland Contexts in the Upper Mississippi Valley. American Antiquity 69(4):751-760. Summerhayes GR. 2009. Obsidian network patterns in Melanesia: Sources, characterisation, and distribution. IPPA Bulletin 29:109-123. Also Known As: Volcanic glass Examples: Teotihuacan and Catal Hoyuk are just two of the sites where obsidian was clearly considered an important stone resource.