CIS Insights | Art is an Experience
Canadian International School of Guangzhou
2023-04-16
“Wow! This is so cool!”
“Check that out! That’s my dot!”
Last month, the CIS community enjoyed our very first interactive “The Dot” glow in the dark fine arts exhibition. Created and curated collectively by our elementary students, a plethora of blue light lit up the many stunning artworks (and amazed faces) as they bathed in the language of light and creativity.
Fine Arts has always been a mandatory subject from Kindergarten all the way to Grade 9 in the innovative CIS Alberta (Canada) curriculum. What has changed since we incorporated the IB PYP teaching framework to our Canadian curriculum? What exactly are CIS students learning in their Art classes? Let’s visit the Van Gogh Studio and talk to the CIS Fine Arts team: Ms. Jacques and Ms. Grkovic! The Dots: Inspired by a Girl Who “Hated” Art ‘The Dots’ art show was inspired by Vashti, a character from one of Peter H. Reynolds’ books called The Dot. It’s about a student who does not have confidence in her artistic skills but with positive encouragement from her teacher, creates a dot! From then on, she confidently experiments and discovers what she can actually do, ending up with a gallery of artwork filled with dots in all sizes and forms! By turning this inspiring story to a vivid art show, the students at CIS wanted to share with the wider community our core philosophy in learning Arts: Everyone has the potential to be an artist, and you can create, love and embrace art in so many different ways. Each and every dot in the show is a representation of our confidence, positivity and desire to uphold the IB learner profiles. Enjoy the Process: We Value Experience More Than the End Product The CIS Art experience is more about process and instilling in students a love of creativity and artistic curiosity. Our art classes feature more than just colored pencils and paint on paper… there’s sculpture, digital art, printmaking and plenty more! At CIS, art is a growth mindset, cultivating open-mindedness and an innovative way to think about and see the world. Grade 5 students are doing color experiments in various ways to express themselves. We definitely try to explore as much as we can. What we want is for students to experience arts. We are incorporating all different art forms in classes and After School Activities (ASAs) so that the students can explore, where they start to think like an artist, behave like an artist. And in order to do that, there's a process, a thinking process, a creative process, an explorative process where no idea is crazy. And it comes through play, it comes through research. All these are incorporated with the IB framework and inquiry learning. So, we're definitely more about the process than the end product. Creating an Art Portfolio: The Ticket to Top Art Schools For the past few years, CIS graduates have received offers from Top Art Schools all over the world, including Emily Carr University of Arts and Design in Canada, UAL in UK, and Guangzhou Fine Arts Academy here in China. These students were not what we traditionally called “artistic” when they started at CIS, but they all found their passion in the Arts as a degree major and/or career. An art portfolio is your ticket to the art career that you want. It doesn't start in Grade 12. It starts in Grade 1. We're very lucky to have both the Alberta Curriculum and IB framework here at CIS. In the inquiry learning process, students are always thinking, inquiring and reflecting. When they finish their work, we do critiques, or reflections, as well. We discuss reasons for our choices. Why did we choose this medium? How did we get this result? We even carry further research about our ideas to ensure we explore artist influences. What did we do in between that area to make it your own? All these help students create their portfolio. And that's what top art schools all want: A student in university that will take on what the university can offer them, and then also create their own artistic voice and then represent the university in that way too. Grade 1 students are learning about Henri Matisse, understanding how his art had changed because of life circumstances and illnesses. Ultimately, the end goal for CIS art education, is ultimately about learning to love art. Not just the final product, but all things in between, from process and creation, to our trials, tribulations, failures and our final product. At the end of the day, an art degree opens doors not just in the arts, but also in animation, engineering, marketing, architecture… the list is endless! And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that nothing is certain. Indeed, having an arts degree equips students with different perspectives to strengthen their ability to cope with uncertainty, because that’s going to be the future of work for everybody, and an important part of what the future workforce truly needs.
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