Integrated Arts
The Arts are an integral part of CPSC's curriculum — not just a class once a week! At CPSC, students explore the visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, design technology, wood-working, culinary arts, martial arts, and yoga.
Why Are the Arts Important?
A thoroughly integrated Arts curriculum is fundamental to CPSC’s mission and philosophy. The Arts are critical for developing each child’s personal and intellectual potential — a vital element, relevant to all our work, and essential to hands-on learning.
The Arts encourage the entire community to play and explore. Through the Arts, students examine and celebrate their own uniqueness and their own lives. They develop self-confidence, acceptance, and a creative approach to life.
Reaching out to the community helps us to extend Arts education exponentially. Many of our teachers, family members and caregivers become informal "Artists in Residence", and we often have community members come in as guest artists. Students also visit museums, galleries, studios and performances for inspiration.
What Does "Integrated Arts" Mean at CPSC?
The Arts are woven through every school day at CPSC, a natural fit with our Project Based Learning paradigm. In every classroom, the Arts are used to explore, discover and communicate. Student artwork graces every wall, and student performances are frequently a part of our school-wide Friday Afternoon Meetings.
Music and Art are taught as core subjects, often building on what students are learning in their regular classrooms. In weekly music classes, all CPSC students learn to play instruments, understand music theory, and appreciate music of many cultures. In weekly art classes, all CPSC students learn techniques to express what they imagine and see. Visiting artists offer our classes the chance to explore Arts activities from drumming to dance.
In the classroom, the Arts complement work in all other disciplines, helping students approach the curriculum from different angles and communicate what they are learning. Using skills and techniques from the Arts, students draw, paint, make models, create scientific observational draws, employ graphic design, write and illustrate. They sing, write songs and play instruments; they move, interact and perform. They experience what they learn.
A strong, integrated Arts component in our curriculum helps students acquire and retain concepts, appreciate cultural uniqueness and commonality, understand emotional responses, and express their learning in ways that uplift and edify the entire community.