NAME:
Mrs. Karen Johns
SCHOOL:
Lakeview Elementary School
CLASS:
K-5 Music Education
SCHOOL PHONE:
941-361-6571
Mrs. Johns is very pleased to have been teaching music in Sarasota County
schools for nineteen years, and this is her sixth year at Lakeview. She is a
National Board Certified Teacher and mentors new music and art teachers in
the school district. She has adjudicated All-State Elementary Chorus
auditions and has directed county-wide music festivals. She is Coordinator of
the Steering Committee of the Community/Schools Partnership for the Arts
(C/SPA), an advisory committee to the Superintendent of Sarasota County
Schools. And she is the proud mother of three wonderful children and
grandmother of Ali.
Before becoming a public school teacher, Mrs. Johns worked as a music
therapist and administrator at Department of Health and Rehabilitative
Services facilities in North Florida. She has served on the state board of
Florida Music Educators Association and has worked as a consultant for
teacher inservice training in the areas of music education for children with
special needs.
Mrs. Johns has specialized training in facilitation and leadership from the
State of Florida and from the International Creativity Institute at the
University of New York in Buffalo. She and her husband have taken students
to tour Europe with the Florida Ambassadors of Music and to New York several
times to sing at Carnegie Hall. She has a strong passion for working to make
sure that every single child has a balanced curriculum, including continuous
access to high quality arts education courses.
Mrs. Johns directs Lakeview's comprehensive music education program, which
includes K-5 General Music classes, 3rd Grade Advanced Recorder Ensemble,
4th/5th Grade Chorus & Violin instruction and performing opportunities for
every Lakeview student. She can be reached at the following email address.
karen_johns@sarasota.k12.fl.us
To support the intellectual and creative maturity of children by helping them:
*develop and use their musical talents.
*increase their verbal, emotional, & spatial intelligences.
*improve their abilities to concentrate and remember.
*inspire right-brain creative thinking processes.
*increase body movement opportunities & coordination skills.
*enhance mood, motivation and pacing abilities.
*strengthen intuitive thinking skills.
*better understand the passage of time, historical
and cultural events.
*set goals and persevere to reach them.
*learn to cooperate thru participation in performing arts.
*realize and substantiate their own opinions.
*value and show respect for the opinions of others.
*find safe, constructive, enjoyable ways to use their time.
"LEARNING IS GOOD. LEARNING TO LEARN IS BETTER. LOVING TO LEARN IS
BEST. THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE NECESSITATES A CONSTANT STRUGGLE
AGAINST MEDIOCRITY."
- Frank T. Brogan, Florida Commissioner of Education,
in his January 8, 1998, keynote address to the Florida Music Educators
Association
For more information on the usefulness of the arts in helping develop the
crucial thinking skills and motivations students need to achieve at higher
levels and not be left behind, see the May 16th, 2002, report CRITICAL LINKS:
LEARNING IN THE ARTS AND STUDENT ACADEMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT at this site.
www.aep-arts.org
