Last week, Arkadelphia Art Teacher Amy Taylor took part in the prestigious “Visual Literacy: Reading Beyond Words” Conference at Crystal Bridges Museum. Out of a national pool of applicants, Mrs. Taylor was selected to attend this incredible professional learning experience led by the University of Arkansas Art Department and national arts integration experts, Focus 5. As an Arkansas art educator, her expenses and new teaching resources were fully funded through a specialized grant opportunity.
Grounded in neuroscience and Crystal Bridges’ innovative learning framework, the conference focused on how visual art can be integrated into core class curricula to deepen how students learn, connect, and engage. Mrs. Taylor spent her week in the K-12 ELA-focused learning track, exploring ways to stretch our students' "art-viewing muscles" and bring fresh, cross-curricular teaching methods to Arkadelphia!
Mrs. Taylor shared one of her biggest takeaways: a statement from an MIT study that said that we can see an image for as few as 13 milliseconds and recall what was in the image. And that, while reading requires the brain to decode symbols sequentially, images allow many elements to be processed simultaneously. The benefits of learning to REALLY look at art - to “read it”- have the potential to be of great consequence to student learning across the curriculum. It's neuroscience! Brain pathways loading...
We are so proud of Mrs. Taylor’s commitment to growing as an educator and bringing the best back to our schools! We would also like to share that Mrs. Taylor will be moving to Arkadelphia High School in the 2026-27 school year from Peake Elementary. She has done an amazing job with our elementary students, and AHS has another great art teacher on the way!
#BadgerPride
