Congratulations to Mrs. Paula Turner, Orchestra Director at Lakeland Preparatory School, for being selected to attend the 2021 Tennessee Arts Academy in July. According to their press release, “The Tennessee Arts Academy is the nation’s premier professional development institute for arts education. A program of the Tennessee Department of Education, the Academy has been hosted annually since 1986 on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. This year’s Academy will be held virtually due to the current COVID crisis.”
This year’s Academy, held July 11 – July 16, will focus on a diverse range of classes in music, visual art, and theatre and dance as well as a special track in arts leadership and administration. Highlights of the week include performances, keynote speeches presented by nationally recognized artists and educators, and three art exhibitions.
The Arts Academy utilizes an advanced curriculum, cutting-edge methods and unique perspectives to maximize participants’ learning experiences. More than 325 K–12 teachers and administrators are trained every summer, which impacts between 150,000 – 200,000 Tennessee students each year in their individual school districts and classrooms all across the state, leaving them better equipped to raise achievement standards for Tennessee students.
Mrs. Turner, who has been at Lakeland since 2017 said, “I am looking forward to joining the Arts Leadership & Administration
track under the guidance of my former colleague and mentor, Dr. Dru Davison of Shelby County Schools in Memphis. Especially after directly experiencing a year providing music education during the Covid-19 pandemic, I realize the importance of advocacy and innovation in fine arts education. The fine arts community as a whole must be ready at any moment to pivot beyond traditional means of personal expression and to explore new ideas about what it means to embrace and share our creativity in any environment and under any circumstances.”
