Arts + Learning

Art plays a powerful role in the way children’s minds develop. It teaches children to look for connections and leap into problem solving without fear.

If we want our students to have the skills to address the complexities of the future, they must believe that their ideas have value and that they can create something tangible from them. Giving art a central role in our classrooms stretches kids’ imaginations and inspires deep, synthetic thinking.

Tinkering comes naturally to children. If children have access to mediums for drawing and creating, recyclables or blocks for building at home, they’ll be primed to expand their minds and use their ingenuity in school. Knowing what it feels like to think inventively, they’ll recognize that one inspiration spontaneously leads to many more.

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that they are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
-John Steinbeck

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that they are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

-John Steinbeck

Because art plays a powerful role in the development of children’s minds, we are intentional about teaching children to look for connections and leap into problem solving without fear.

If we want our students to have the skills to address the complexities of the future, they must believe that their ideas have value and that they can create something tangible from them. Giving art a central role in our classrooms stretches kids’ imaginations and inspires deep, synthetic thinking.

Thinking through Context

  • Context provides a vehicle for connection building, key to living connected lives in an interconnected world
  • Connected teaching means learning exists within a holistic context rather than in unrelated pockets
  • Connected learning invites conceptual, big picture, symphonic thinking

Thinking through Big Ideas

  • Art is a context for thinking through big ideas
  • Big ideas deepen one’s understanding of  issues in today’s world
  • Big ideas inpire thinking for the future

“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.”
-Sir Ken Robinson