6 Reasons Houston Arts Partners Should Be On Your Radar

The Houston Arts Partners hosted their third annual conference on September 13 & 14, 2013. The event was an exciting and informative marriage between the worlds of education, the Arts, and STEM careers, with the theme Arts Work. With each conference, Houston Arts Partners aims to provide tools to classroom teachers of core content subjects that inspire teachers to utilize Fine Arts skills sets to enhance their classroom instruction. Based on my experiences at this year's conference, I know first hand that Houston Arts Partners vastly succeeds. Furthermore, it was so uplifting to see the STEM world openly embrace the Arts world and recognize the invaluable lessons that the Arts teach.

Here are 6 reasons why you should follow Houston Arts Partners and attend the 2014 Conference:

6. Membership is FREE!

To get the most out of the Houston Arts Partners website, http://houstonartspartners.org, you need to register. It costs nothing to register and the information Houston Arts Partners has available to share with you is priceless.

5. Resources, Resources, Resources

If you're a classroom teacher, you should have http://houstonartspartners.org bookmarked. Houston Arts Partners has a plethora of content and activities aligned to the TEKS available for you to use in your classrooms or as you plan fieldtrips. Most impressively, they even have resources to assist with grant writing and advocacy support.

4. Networking

Houston Arts Partners reaches out to the best of the best from all walks of life. Their highly interactive conferences provide ample opportunities for attendees to rub elbows with the best and brightest educational professionals from Houston area school districts, incredibly talented artists, and intelligent and intriguing professionals from the STEM and business worlds. As we continue to develop as life-long learners, it never hurts to make invaluable connections like these.

3. Fascinating Conference Panels

Chances are you've been to conferences with panels that you try to avoid. In my previous experiences, these sessions usually seem to only be geared toward people in upper administrative positions or those financially responsible for planning the next conference. Well, Houston Arts Partners utilizes their panels differently. Their panels are interactive and bring attendees and speakers together to have priceless and enlightening conversations that center around the conference theme. Here, they're thought provoking and fun. These are panels you'll be excited to experience.

2. Exciting Conference Break Out Sessions

Anytime we can experience something that we can take back to our classrooms, the curiosity inherent in all teachers is piqued. Houston Arts Partners understands this and utilizes break out sessions to reach teachers on this level. For instance, my favorite break out session was a class where dance movements were used to assist in the teaching of figurative language. In this session, my dance vocabulary was broadened and I got to experience, as a student would, an absorbing way to teach figurative language to my 7th grade students. Moreover, the people teaching the session expressed interest and availability to even come to my school and teach the lesson with me.

1. The 2014 theme is Arts and the Global Classroom

We always hear about the Global Economy, Globalization, Global Health, and so on. With the advent of the internet and the ease of interconnectedness across the globe, it is no surprise that classrooms are becoming less insular. As a culture, we are growing more and more interested in the Global Classroom, or a classroom where students and teachers can collaborate through social media platforms that erase geographic borders to improve content, learning, and communication. It has been said that the Arts often breed innovation, and the relatively novel idea of the Global Classroom would then intrinsically be connected to and inspired by the Arts; therefore, I can assure you that the 2014 conference will be amazing!

Bonus Shot: Conference SWAG!

Who doesn't like free stuff? At the 2013 Houston Arts Partners Conference there was a wide range of quality vendors with neat freebies they were more than happy to share. Texas Arts Supply was handing out small bottles of paint, while Theatre Under the Stars was giving away window card posters from previous productions. Walking away from the conference I had a bag full of creative and fun items from the various vendors at the conference.

Don't miss the 2014 conference or on other awesome opportunities to fuse Arts skills sets with core content TEKS. In the meantime, if you're a teacher, parent, professional, executive, or artist, feel free to explore and utilize the resources and information found on http://www.houstonartspartners.org.

Photos courtesy of Houston Arts Partners.

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