{"id":7,"date":"2024-01-11T01:33:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T01:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10028\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2024-01-24T19:09:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T19:09:31","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/localhost:10028\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Who<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Ann Shea Kent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

(BFA,MA Ed)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Actor<\/strong>, Director<\/strong> and Literacy Consultant<\/strong>
for schools and arts organizations.
Shea Kent fosters curriculum-based, student-authored theater and film productions for schools in Northern California \u2014 especially plays of self discovery called Heritage Plays. She\u2019s also designed a program of theater and visual arts engagement for museums called, There\u2019s Magic in the Museum!
Shea Kent continues to explore how the arts live within educational praxis across the curriculum, clarifying the connection between meaning making and art via her manuscript, PLAY: Imagination in Cognition and Art in Schools.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cFirst of all<\/strong>, you should know that you can\u2019t blow it. Anything that you do to help your kids along the road to deeper understanding, putting their thoughts into words and discovering their own self-efficacy, is where it\u2019s at. The play \u2014 that is, the final performance \u2014 is not the thing. The thing, in this case, is the kids and their sense of discovery \u2014 of themselves and of the subject at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n~ From \u201cPLAY: Imagination in Cognition and Art In Schools\u201d (2021; unpublished)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c\u2026 Expressiveness<\/strong> is a function of understanding, and the ability to share that understanding. There is little difference between reading with expression and acting in a play. In fact, it\u2019s the only rule of acting that I gave my students \u2014 Oh well, besides standing up tall and lifting their faces, but those are more akin to syntax; I\u2019m addressing understanding here \u2014 I instructed them that they must understand the meaning of every word they say. If they didn\u2019t understand something, then they needed to search out the meaning. You can\u2019t communicate what you are saying if you don\u2019t understand it! And the more deeply you understand what you\u2019re saying, the more effective you\u2019ll be at communicating what you mean. The same could be said for writing, and of course, that search for meaning brings students right to the core of literacy.\u201d<\/p>\n~ From \u201cOn Meaning, Authenticity and Engagement\u201d (2009)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself.\u201d<\/p>\n~ Immanuel Kant (1781)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cImagination feeds our ability to ask the big questions, to think large and deep \u2026 wonder is the fuel that feeds our desire to understand the world.\u201d<\/p>\n~ Karen Gallas (2003)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt [is] not possible here \u2014 even in prose \u2014 to portray all that goes on in the learning that happens through participation in the arts\u2026 neither is it possible to render in poetry the truth of its fullness.\u201d<\/p>\n~ Shirley Brice Heath (1999)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOnce upon a time, oral storytelling ruled. It was the medium through which people learned their history, settled their arguments, and came to make sense of the phenomena of their world\u2026 but the respect for storytelling as a tool of learning was almost forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n~ National Council of Teachers of English (1997)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c\u2026 before there was school, there were stories \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n~ Vivian Gussin Paley (2004)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe need to focus more on teaching the skill and will to learn and to make a difference and bring the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion and purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n~ Tony Wagner (2013)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201dThe arts are not extracurricular\u2026The arts are not extra\u2026 I don\u2019t see how people without loose associations and flights of ideas get much done.\u201d<\/p>\n~ Mark Vonnegut (2010)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhat I mean is a reconsideration of our understanding of the role art naturally plays in our thinking lives, a recollection of ourselves as essentially creative beings, and a re-imagination of what kind of world we\u2019d like to make for our kids at school . . . as well as the kind of world they\u2019ll go on to create for themselves in turn.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2013 Ann Shea Kent (2021, unpublished), PLAY: Imagination and Art in Schools<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Connect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n
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