Information about Springmont Montessori: springmont.com or 404-252-3910.
Though budget cuts often take a toll on courses that seem indirectly related to a core curriculum, education experts have long held that keeping art, music and other creative classes enhance a student’s overall creativity and thinking skills. Some schools have found ways to hang onto those programs, and not just as individual, once-a-week diversions from the usual drills of math and reading.
At the Springmont Montessori school in Sandy Springs, faculty have kept an emphasis on art by blending it into all aspects of the curriculum, making it a key component of classes that may not, at first glance, seem to lend themselves to art, such as science, history and language arts.
“Our curriculum has always integrated different art forms, including performing as well as visual arts - that’s the legacy we’ve had here since we began 52 years ago,” said Jerri King, who has led the school for nine years. “We invested quite a bit in talented personnel who create the art curriculum and who have the flexibility to help students craft art interests. They also serve as a resource to teachers to bring that curriculum alive in their own classrooms.”
Springmont’s students have access to an art studio, a small cottage that the school took over a few years ago and transformed into a creative haven. Classes are held there throughout the week, and open studio times afford students more opportunities to work on projects.
“Having that open studio time in addition to art class each week is what really sets us apart,” explained Theresa Dean, one of the school’s two art teachers who is also a painter and set designer. “When the studio is open, each class can send students in to work on different projects. I recently had some here building a replica of the Titanic using materials we had. Another three were doing research on farming and doing a little diorama.”
Dean collects a range of supplies, from paints to those cardboard tubes inside of paper towel rolls, shows the students what’s in store and let’s them have at it.
“I may offer suggestions, but usually I steer them to what resources we have, and they use their imaginations to create. So a paper towel holder turned into a smoke stack of the Titanic. When students interact with content like that, it brings it to life for them.”
Art projects pop up in oral presentations and research projects because students enjoy learning through their hands, Dean said. “They can use their individual creativity to have a personal engagement with the material they’re learning about.”
Students put their creativity to work on the school’s Monarchs to Mexico program that sends their original art of monarch butterflies to a school in Mexico where the creatures migrate. They have also put their artistic energies into the annual environmental poetry and art project, River of Words, a competition based on the theme of watersheds. This year, five Springmont students took national and state awards in the contest.
“We’ve been part of that competition for 20 years as a way to get children caring for their environment,” said King. “It raises awareness at a young age. One year, we had a grand prize winner. It’s a wonderful way of getting children to be aware of the environment through the arts.”
For one of those former winners, fifth grader Happy Leveson-Jones, art is most important as a means of self-expression.
“I like using my hands to express myself; I don’t really like telling things,” she said. “I’d rather just draw something. I can do that through my art in all my classes here because it’s part of the day-to-day lessons.”
About the Author
