Dr. David Finells Shabbat Shalom message: The Art of Education This past week at the school Mrs. Woloshin was teaching about parody in art using the iconic American painting American Gothic by Grant Wood (currently on exhibition in Cincinnati). Later that day one of our adorable kindergarten students went home and her mom asked what she had learned about in school today. She enthusiastically responded: American Gossip! (Check out the wonderful parodies these students created on display in the hallway leading up to the K-8 classroom wing.) Rabbi Elie Spitz once passed on this teaching: A philosopher wrote that we should live our lives as if painting a great art work. Each stroke of the brush must be deliberate and part of a larger whole. Rabbi Spitz expresses that when he first read this he felt paralyzed. If my life was a canvas, then there were already serious blotches of paint on it. Later, I read that new infrared photography had revealed that the Mona Lisa, that greatest of art works, had been painted over in parts by Leonardo DaVinci. Somehow I felt great relief. Yes, I too could repaint those parts of my life that were blotched. Life, like art, is a process of ongoing review, and allows for change and correction. Maybe that is at least in part why, over the past 62 years, the Arts have always been such a central aspect of the education we offer at Rockwern Academy. Because through the arts we come to see this truth, as American educator, writer, and social activist Vida D. Scudder once wrote: It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. I think this deliberate and consistent focus on creativity is such an important part of what makes Rockwern Academy a special and vibrant learning community. In many schools such creativity has become a thing of the past in this predominant teach to the test culture, as teachers have lost the autonomy to teach in creative and innovative ways and as classes in the Arts have become stripped from the curriculum in many schools in favor of more time on remediation. I remember last year when a prospective family, whose children attended a well-respected Cincinnati public school, visited Rockwern. During their tour they watched a few minutes of Poetry Friday in the library, when the 4th and 5th grades come together to learn about and enjoy poetry each week. As we were leaving the library the woman turned to her husband and asked him incredulously, When was the last time you can remember our kids having poetry at their current school? (They enrolled their children at Rockwern). In an age where the predominant value in so many schools continues to be on teaching students to be successful on standardized tests, at Rockwern Academy we uphold a focus on the Jewish value of creating. Of course we have a rigorous academic program, and of course we administer standardized tests (MAP and OLSAT) as well. They give us great data on our program and our students, and our students perform beautifully year after year on these assessments. But we do not teach to these tests. These tests do not define us as a school. Instead we are blessed with brilliantly creative teachers who have the freedom to teach in innovative ways. And under their skilled guidance, our children learn how to create - how to create with words and with images, with numbers and with music, with beliefs and with ideas. I think about the Jewish New Year just about to begin and about the new school year which recently just began. This Wednesday at sundown it is the birthday of the world, - a time of new beginnings, a time of teshuva, of change, of making those painful adjustments and corrections. So as Rosh HaShana approaches, we stand poised on the cusp of a special time. For the Jewish New Year is at heart a moment which contains within it the potential for us coming to see ever more clearly how we have the power to change and the power to create, and how they are related. And in coming to see this truth we want our children to learn it as well: that life is revealed through creating. And in knowing that truth, we as parents also come to understand that - essential though they are - the education we offer in our schools cannot only be about writing five-paragraph essays, solving Algebraic equations, or memorizing Latin verbs. Parents who send their children to schools like Rockwern Academy understand that real education must in addition also be in large measure about teaching our children to nurture their creativity, to love music and art and poetry, to learn how to incorporate into their lives the eternal teachings and traditions of their heritage, and ultimately coming to see that slowly but surely they - and we as well, dear friends - can and do change. Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova! David B. Finell, Head of School
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:45:37 +0000
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