The Society for Arts in Health Care

This is my most recent new affiliation...another step along the path of My Mysterious Journey.

https://www1074.ssldomain.com/thesah/template/index.cfm

Please take a look at the web site and information below.
The power of the arts is unlimited in healing and in transforming mind, body and spirit.
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Arts in Healthcare

Arts in Healthcare is a diverse, multidisciplinary field dedicated to transforming the healthcare experience by connecting people with the power of the arts at key moments in their lives. This rapidly growing field integrates the arts, including literary, performing and visual arts and design, into a wide variety of health care and community settings for therapeutic, educational and expressive purposes.

Areas of focus include:

• Patient Care-The incorporation of the arts into the healthcare experience has a positive impact on patient health outcomes. The arts benefit patients by aiding in their physical, mental and emotional recovery, including relieving anxiety and decreasing the perception of pain. In an atmosphere where the patient often feels out of control, the arts can serve as a therapeutic and healing tool, reducing stress and loneliness and providing opportunities for self-expression. Art also has the power to communicate and educate, giving it a growing role of significance in healthcare institutions. In addition, research shows that the arts can reduce patients' use of pain medication and length of stay in the hospital, and improve compliance with recommended treatments—offering substantial savings in healthcare costs.

• Healthcare Environments-The arts create safer, more supportive and functional environments in health care facilities. From architectural design to art on the walls, from access to natural lighting to the inclusion of nature through landscape and healing gardens, the physical environment has a significant impact on reducing patient and caregiver stress; improving health outcomes; enhancing patient safety and overall quality of care; and reducing costs. The physical environment also plays an important role in improving the health and safety for staff, increasing effectiveness in providing care, reducing errors and increasing job satisfaction.

• Caring for Caregivers-Caregivers, such as family, friends and health care providers in hospitals, hospices and other health facilities, are faced with the realities of human suffering, illnesses and death on a daily basis. Arts programming for caregivers creates a common, more normative environment, and offers caregivers an opportunity for creativity and self-expression that allows them to healthfully integrate their experiences and emotions instead of carrying them home or into the workplace. In addition, the arts give medical professionals new tools for improving diagnostic and communication skills and can be used to better communicate health and recovery information. The arts help overcome barriers by embracing diversity, reinforcing family members' supportive role in the healing process, and changing the culture within the health care facility to one that is more supportive and humane.

• Community Well-being-Arts in health care can benefit communities by engaging people in arts programs aimed at promoting prevention and wellness activities and communicating health information to improve knowledge. For students in medical and other healthcare fields, the arts can enhance their skills-improving their observational, diagnostic and empathic abilities. It helps them to understand patients in a different way and connect with them on a more humanizing level.

An excerpt from the State of the Field Report

Writing as Therapy

This evening I was looking for a particular bookmark on my computer and bumped into this one on Writing Therapy. As I am convinced that everything happens for a reason in the collective unconscious, here is an excerpt and the link for the web article. I hope some of you will find the article fascinating and practice the techniques. More than once, I have found writing to be a most effective therapy and means to find answers to seemingly impossible situations.
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http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/personal-growth/write-therapy/write.asp#top
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"Writing is a meditation: it settles the mind. It is a de-stressor: it releases tension. It is like a confessor who keeps your secrets safe. It is also a mood-changer, with the capability of making you happy. It is an outlet, for it helps you let go of your negative thoughts. It is creative, cathartic, curative.

Quite simply, writing is beyond words, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his daughter while confined to prison; Anne Frank from her secret annex. Hugh Prather writes notes to himself; Franz Kafka did not even want his writings published. Generals narrate anecdotes from their lives; so do politicians, bureaucrats, artists."

Excerpt from my paper "Skills Acquired in Visual Arts Lead to Increased Achievement in Language Arts"

I am hoping to use these excerpts from a previously written piece to develop more writing on interdisciplinary curriculum development. Any comments on content, feasibility for implementation in your classroom or writing mechanics would be appreciated.
Thank you.
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Harvey and Goudvis write about visualizing: "Visualizing brings joy to reading." (p.97). Research shows that 95% of children are visual learners; therefore, so it makes sense that children would learn best through visual strategies. Students need a motivating strategy to teach them higher levels of thinking identified in Bloom's taxonomy: analysis and synthesis.

Looking at works of art is a stimulating strategy to teach these skills. Critical analysis of art work that children enjoy is a strategy that I have used frequently in my own teaching to foster analysis and synthesis. In these strategies, students study two works of art and participate in a lively discussion of comparison and contrast of the two pieces. Inferences are made about the visual content. Students begin to discover details and delve deeper into meanings below the surface.

Critical analysis skills can be developed and evaluated by comparing and contrasting works of art. A simple method for third and fourth graders to learn these skills is to look at two different painting reproductions. Allowing students to study the paintings for a few minutes allows them to begin to formulate ideas related to the content and also the art elements present in the work.

Following an observation period of approximately two to three minutes, high level questions that engage students in deep conversations about the setails of the paintings may be asked of the students. Students participate in a rigorous discussion that has potential for conitive growth and development of analysis and synthesis. Students draw on prior knowledge and apply it to new observations and thought and make connections. Students are encouraged to study, articulate, reflect and communicate their ideas and connections. Transfer of learning will occur after any of these exercises and writing and reading exercises are encouraged particularly at the third and fourth grade levels to reinforce the transfer and encourage further inquiry while enriching their lives by involving visual art.

Summer Art Enrichment

Nature Mandalas
Last week I taught a Summer Enrichment course at my school on making Nature Mandalas. The students were enthusiastic, artistic third and fourth graders. We learned about radial symmetry to make connections with art, nature and math. I am an active proponent of helping children to appreciate our natural world through the arts. To design the mandalas, the children and I collected materials from the school yard. We combined those items with some stones I had from a trips to Maine and Cape Cod and a bucket of small shells. Please enjoy the photographs and make a mandala with your children this summer ! All you need to do is take a bag and go for a walk. The children will do the rest! We used cardboard cake rounds as a base and white Elmer's glue to attach our beautiful articles from nature. The children were amazed at how many delicate plants were in our school yard and next to our pond. The two most exciting moments of our nature collection walks were when we spotted a frog in the pond and when everyone in the group found a four leaf clover! If you would like to reference some books on summer nature activities for children, your local library may have some good resources. I like the book called "Nature Crafts for Children". Also, a great book to read is "Last Child in the Woods." Please teach your children and students to be in touch with and learn to appreciate our earth so that future economic and political decisions will have a positive impact on our environment.

Mid-life Launch

This is the first blog I have created and it may be the beginning of the book I have always wanted to actually publish. I have a pile of paper journals a mile high. Let me look in there and post some of my previous writings!
Peace be with all of us,
~Melanie