Arts education excellence celebrated at State House

AUGUSTA – Gov. Angus King proclaimed March 1 Arts Education Advocacy Day in Maine, and to mark the occasion the Maine Alliance for Arts Education sponsored a celebration Thursday in the Hall of Flags at the state Capitol.

Representatives from dozens of arts education organizations across Maine had exhibits of their work, including a special display of student visual art gathered by the Maine Art Education Association. Education Commissioner Duke Albanese spoke during the awards ceremony at noon, and three student groups gave performances.

From the Toddy Pond School in Belfast, a group of 7- and 8-year-old boys performed a dance improvisation; a middle school group from Litchfield gave a dramatic reading; and a music ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists from Thornton Academy in Saco performed several musical selections.

First lady Mary Herman presented the two annual awards of the Alliance: Alison Machiaek, drama teacher at Rockland District High School, received the Bill Bonyun Artist-Educator Award, and Carl Stasio Jr., headmaster of Thornton Academy, was named Distinguished School Administrator in Arts Education.

The Artist-Educator Award is given each year in honor of Bill Bonyun of Westport Island, whose career as a folklorist, storyteller, singer, writer and educator spanned more than half a century.

In conferring the award on Machiaek, the Maine Alliance for Arts Education is recognizing her achievement as a drama educator who has shown outstanding commitment and dedicated service in developing a drama program in Rockland over more than a decade. She was the organizing force behind recent renovations to the high school’s auditorium, and she has instituted a drama curriculum at Rockland High which, in just two years, has grown to five full periods of theater courses.

Machiaek was nominated by Beth Gerrish, an SAD 5 school board member and parent, who remarked that Machiaek “has the ability to find a talent in each and every student.”

One of Machiaek’s students, senior Jen Logan Gerrish, described her teacher’s drama classes as “performance-oriented and noncompetitive,” which gives all students, not just the talented ones, “a low-pressure, enjoyable setting. It allows students to explore the theater and find their role in it in ways they previously could not.”

In receiving the Distinguished Administrator Award for Arts Education, Carl Stasio Jr. is being honored for his outstanding leadership and support of the arts. David Hanright, arts department chairman at Thornton Academy, applauded Stasio for filling the faculty “with professional, passionate arts educators who do not want for support, encouragement or funding to make their visions and hard work reality.”

Since 1986, when Stasio became headmaster, the school’s arts curriculum has grown dramatically and become among the strongest in the state. More than a third of the student body is enrolled in visual art classes. There is a full-time dance instructor; the music program involves hundreds of students in chorus, band, strings, chamber orchestra, keyboards and music theory; and drama flourishes with fundamentals and upper-level acting courses. Integration of the arts into other subject areas is also a hallmark of the program Stasio has nurtured. A former history teacher, he says he “saw the arts as an enriching way to get students thinking and talking, and not just about history.”

Several nominees also received honorable mention at Thursday’s ceremony. They include: Susan Beaulier, art, and gifted and talented teacher, in SAD 32, Ashland; Dr. William Doughty, superintendent, SAD 40, Waldoboro; Kal Elmore, art teacher, Bangor High School; Pamela Hallett, curriculum coordinator, SAD 1, Presque Isle; the team of Michael Hurley, Belfast mayor, Nancy Hauswald, writer, and artist Cathy Melio, who coordinated Belfast’s Bearfest, a community art project; Maria Parson Morgan, founder-director of Warrington House, an arts center in Blue Hill; Barbara Neilly, principal of Conners-Emerson School (K-8), Bar Harbor; Carl Richardson, executive director, River Tree Arts and Music School, Kennebunk; and Marcia Ryder, art director, Traip Academy, Kittery.

The Main Alliance for Arts Education is the only statewide organization whose mission is to encourage and strengthen educational excellence in all the arts: music, visual art, dance, theater and writing. Its network of classroom teachers, arts specialists, school administrators, parents, artists and community supporters, works in the local communities to ensure quality arts education experiences for all children. Regional offices in Penquis, Hancock and Franklin counties are staffed with part-time arts educators to provide direct service to those communities. For information, contact the state office at 342-3443 or visit the Web site at www.maineallforartsed.org.