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Thanks to Zachary Varnell, creative director of Elements of Education, for writing this guest post.
We are so excited to announce a renewed partnership between Elements of Education and Comcast. Elements of Education is the a non-profit organization based out of Tacoma, Washington, that supports arts, science and literacy initiatives in public education and specifically Tacoma School of the Arts (SOTA)and The Science and Math Institute
Comcast is dedicated to strengthening communities through digital literacy programs, like the media arts department at the Tacoma School of the Arts and The Science and Math Institute. In addition to sharing resources and technology, both Comcast and Elements of Education support the Digital Connectors youth program for the Tacoma Urban League, in which other Tacoma Public Schools students meet twice a week after school and currently enrolls over a dozen students in the 2012-2013 cohort.
Comcast is featuring the Public Service Announcement that you see above for Elements of Education on TV channels throughout the South Sound. If you’re wondering where the catchy song came from, it was written by Patrick Doherty of the Tacoma band Wheelies, whose members are all graduates from the first class of SOTA.
At Elements of Education, we believe in the power of creativity, that schools should focus on students’ strengths and reinforce their passions through innovative programs that highlight expression in the arts and sciences. We believe that schools should be embedded within communities, not isolated from them, opening up resources for students to explore and learn. We believe that all students should have access to same opportunities and actively share a widespread full-inclusion policy for all of our students in all of our classes. We believe that students need to be empowered to become the primary drivers of their education and held accountable for setting and meeting rigorous academic and personal goals.
Finally, we believe in fostering and protecting an active learning environment that challenges our staff and community partners to share the burden in developing authentic and rigorous experiences. To see more of the stories at SOTA and SAMI, visit www.elementsofeducation.org.