How does it happen?
Each morning after the announcements students take a moment in their classrooms to listen to music, art, or a piece of children's literature. Each week's selections are connected through a shared theme that addresses an element of the regular classroom curriculum. Some sample weeks have included the following:
Theme: Space exploration, from Science curriculum
Music: Richard Strauss, "Ein Heldenleben," A Hero's Life
Artwork: Photographs by astronauts of the first moon landing
Literature: Brian Floca, "Moonshot"
Theme: How can you creatively describe yourself?
Music: Carl Nielsen, "Prelude for solo violin"
Artwork: Arcimboldo, "Librarian"
Literature: Hanock Piven, "My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks!"
On Friday of each week, there is a culminating video to help draw all the different aspects of the Art of Listening together for the Bower Hill community. Sometimes this takes the form of a staff person narrating the story of the week. Occasionally the narration is by students from the school. At times student artwork is featured. Particularly successful weeks often have spin off projects that are inspired by that week's art of literature. For example, after listening to Piven's "My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks," one second grade classroom created their own self portraits out of found objects, similar to the illustration style of the book and the artwork of Arcimboldo. This was not done under the supervision of an art or music teacher, but with the guidance of a classroom teacher who was brave enough to let their day take a creative artistic bend to it. 21st century learning at it's best!
Questions? contact a member of the Art of Listening team:
Lora O'Brien