It is, perhaps, the oldest, and most common, question a young student may be asked: What’s your favourite subject?
When Cook elementary Grade 7 student Evan Zhu was asked what he would rather be doing, math or art, he replied “math,” of course — Evan likes numbers and doesn’t have as much fun doing art as, say, his classmate and friend Vito Lin.
“It’s fun and creative and you get to draw anything you want,” said Vito.
But the old days of an hour of art here and an hour of math there are long gone.
Art classes blend learning about history, math and science, said Cook principal Deb Collins.
Conversely, history, math and science classes incorporate art.
“What’s happening is everything is becoming integrated, so art is blending into the other subjects. It’s not necessarily something on it’s own. The skills of art can be taught for a project related to social science or math,” said Collins.
So, students like Evan need not rue the day art is marked up on the daily white board schedule since it may very well incorporate math.
“Some kids like art and some kids find it challenging. But we want to teach all of them and keep them moving. It’s an important part of learning,” said Collins, noting art is just as important today as it was ten or 20 years ago.
This month, Evan and Vito completed a number of art projects, some of which will be on display at Aberdeen Centre during Education Week. One of them will be painted CDs with creative designs painted on them.
Collins said there are 470 students at Cook and the school will have four static art boards displayed inside the mall.
Each board will feature a mosaic of art projects from the students, however two boards will only feature the work of Evan and Vito’s class as well as a Grade 3/4 class.
The theme of the art is winter.
The Grade 3/4 students will specifically feature art focused on their study of the Arctic.
“It’s art that has been created through the primary students’ science units. The displays will explain what curriculum the art is related to,” said Collins.
“However many pieces of art we can fit on them, that’s what we’ll display. We want to display a whole lot of things,” added Collins.
You can see Cook’s art at Aberdeen Centre all week long during Education Week.
- EdCom is produced by the Richmond School District and published by the Richmond News.
