The Schutz Art departments use the National Core Art Standards for assessments in music, theatre and visual arts. These standards are scaffolded and divided by grade level to vertically shape student progress and learning, exploration and creative expression.
Visual Arts
Creativity, exploration and inquiry-based learning are fostered in the SAS visual arts program, reaching from kindergarten through twelfth grade. At Schutz, art is not exclusively for the talented, but rather all students have artistic skills. Two art rooms and a ceramics studio allows students to vertically progress through the arts curriculum with efficiency, resilience and a cultivated life-long love for the visual arts.
“Every child is an artist” – Pablo Picasso. The mission of the elementary visual art curriculum is to engage the students in an active learning environment, with student-centered classes. Students engage with various materials and participate in collaboration. The students begin to understand and appreciate art through aesthetics, art criticism, art history, and art production.
All Middle School students are required to take an exploratory art class, meeting every other day. Students continue to build on creativity and skill, helping to structure interdisciplinary exploration through arts integration with mediums in ceramics, painting, drawing, sculpture and much more. Each unit builds upon the last with emphasis and focus on the elements of art and principles of design.
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High School art students, freely chosen as an elective, meet every other day to build artistic competency through ceramics, sculpture, photojournalism, drawing, printmaking and painting. Continuing to master the art of aesthetics and production, students gain the ability to constructively critique, inquire and refine artworks of the masters, their peers and their own.
AP (Advanced Placement) Studio Art is offered to students ready to explore and develop their personal interests and ideas, and develop an individual artistic voice. Students develop mastery in concept, composition, and execution of artworks as they create work for their portfolios. The course teaches students how to develop their own work so that it moves beyond duplication.
Theatre
Students at Schutz have the opportunity to learn drama and perform in theatre productions. Drama and Performing Arts not only engages with the creative side of the brain, it also provides an ideal balance in students’ patterns of study.
Achieving a balanced education is just one of the benefits of studying drama at Schutz.
Drama & Theatre Arts program starts from kindergarten all the way to highschool. Students learn the value of critical feedback both positive and constructive. They have the opportunity to celebrate the richness and depth of human expression in all of its forms. Through creative expression, students learn to comprehend our world better are therefore better equipped to navigate the challenges they might be faced with upon graduating from highschool.
Elementary Classes K-5, young children learn to walk and speak primarily through imitation. They learn about their personal histories and group identities through stories their families tell. They integrate this information with data from other sources in their environments, forming their own self-identities through activities such as dramatic play. Imagine a four-year-old who doesn’t play “Let’s Pretend.” These natural processes of child development form the basis of theatre education in the early grades. The focus of elementary theatre is creative drama, a form of theatre in which teachers guide learners through processes of imagination, enactment, and reflection. As they grow older,children engage in warm-ups and theatre games to help them move from dramatizations with simple plots to ones with more complex plots, characters, and ideas. Pantomime (non-verbal movement) develops from early stages of spontaneity and imitation to structured movement that communicates specific emotions and ideas.
MiddleSchool students advance from teacher-directed activities to projects in which they demonstrate independent thought and action within a larger group structure. Alternating as players and observers in creative drama lessons, students begin to learn appropriate audience conduct. Participating in classroom conversations and critiquing drama experiences build the foundation for independent reflection about dramatic events experienced in school and at home, in live or filmed formats. Scaffolded, or sequenced, theatre instruction helps children develop the concepts, techniques, and skills that serve as the basis for understanding formal productions in which they observe others perform.
High School Drama & Theatre arts course is an elective which allows more freedom, collaboration and independence. Students work on characterization, acting and scenework ending the course with a theatrical production.
Music
Music at Schutz is an integral part of education with formal classes beginning in Kindergarten and available through High School. In class, we focus on inquiry, reflection, and creation. This helps students develop confidence and a strong sense of music literacy. With regular performances throughout the school year, students have opportunities to present and showcase their learning for friends and family. The Music department is affiliated with AMIS, Association for Music in International Schools, continuously committed to growing the department on a communal and international level.
Regular classes being in Elementary, starting with Kindergarten and continue through 5th grade. With the instruction of basic music theory and listening skills, students not only start to develop correct singing skills, but enhance their ability to connect storytelling to music, conceptually.
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In Middle School, students learn to analyze existing pieces, continue to explore different genres and cultures through music, and reflect on how to collaborate successfully. Middle School also offers students a chance to participate in an AMIS Choir Festival. Previously, Schutz has participated in festivals in Malaysia and Oman, with a focus on increasing our participation in festivals all over the world.
For the High School, music is an elective which allows for more flexibility, freedom, and collaboration. Students not only get to sing, but create the instrumental music as well. Digital music allows students a place to integrate technology with creativity as they create and produce original material throughout the course of the year.
ABOUT SCHUTZFounded in 1924, Schutz American School (SAS) is an independent, coeducational school which offers American-based educational program from Pre-kindergarten to K12.
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