The GRAMMY Foundation's Leonard Bernstein Center for Learning is defined as a K-12 comprehensive school reform model which prepares teachers to use the arts and the artistic process to reinforce teaching and learning in all subjects. Termed Artful Learning, this school reform design, based on seven years of intensive collaboration and field research with leading educators and researchers, was developed to strengthen education and form a lifelong love of learning in all students. Recognizing a way to advance the ideals of educational excellence, New American Schools endorsed the LBC as its first and only arts-based school reform model. The model is being implemented in schools across the nation, including sites in Oregon, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, New York City, Indianapolis, and Broward County, Florida. This prestigious designation enables the GRAMMY Foundation to expand LBC's reach while serving our goal of becoming a leader in education.

In another new partnership, SkyLight Professional Development and Drake University have teamed up with LBC to establish a professional development online learning course for educators titled "Learning Is a Work of Art." This course was offered in May and June of 2001 and was open to educators and teachers around the country for graduate credit through Drake University.

Offered for the first time, "Learning Is a Work of Art" provides course participants with creative and powerful tools to engage young people in the learning process. Throughout the 16-week course, educators examine their own skills and intuitions as artists, teachers, and scholars and investigate how combining these roles can enhance teaching and learning by using the Artful Learning framework for planning and assessment.

Course participants move from studying the framework, cognitive learning theory, and brain research to applying this new knowledge to their own teaching and planning. The online availability of the course also allows teachers to interact with their Internet peers. Throughout their academic and artistic work, the course participants share ideas, practices, and materials through Internet galleries, discussion groups, and chat rooms. To register, individuals can call 1.800.348.4474 or go online at www.skylightedu.com.

The LBC is such a fundamentally sound yet flexible model that it is evolving into the centerpiece of the Foundation's educational programming. We've developed LBC curriculum to supplement the TV series "Music in High Places" which aired on both DirecTV and MTV. The series joins some of the world's best known recording artists with some of the world's most culturally and spiritually significant locations. Episodes feature such artists as Alanis Morissette, Brian McKnight, Shawn Colvin, Collective Soul and LeAnn Rimes, among others (more about "Music in High Places").

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For further information on the Leonard Bernstein Center, write to us at 3402 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or send an e-mail to grammyfoundation@grammy.com.