Abstract
In this article, Tina Boyer Brown reflects on her experience as a founding teacher of a new contract public high school, The Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts®). She begins with an account of the school's creation as a place where the academic and the artistic join to offer a comprehensive, challenging education to prepare gifted young artists from diverse backgrounds for college, conservatory, and/or career. Ms. Boyer Brown describes the Arts Curriculum in detail and reports on the reflections of students who are nearing the completion of their education. The article closes with Ms. Boyer Brown's own reflections on the value of arts education. She concludes, “It is the effort of taking a set of practical skills and imbuing them with one's humanity that makes the practice of art so powerful for a student, a teacher, anyone” (p. 19).
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