We consider the arts to be essential to the education of all students.

Each of the arts disciplines encompasses a rich body of knowledge that enables students to understand their world in ways that support and enhance their learning in other subjects. Students learn to see what they look at, hear what they listen to, feel what they touch, and understand more clearly what they integrate into their own experience.

Study of the arts helps all students exercise their cognitive reasoning and makes their experiences more joyful. Students’ cognitive skills, such as language fluency and reading comprehension, are enhanced as they talk and write about works of art they have viewed, created, and performed. When students talk about works of art and performances, they engage in the process of analysis. When they discuss relationships between works of art, they synthesize perceptions and information about those works and their own experiences.

Of equal importance is how the arts help students gain insights into other cultures. Through the arts, students are able to discern their own lives and cultures more clearly. The arts help us to communicate with one another across language and cultural barriers.

The three fundamental philosophical principles for arts education at The Open Charter School are:

The visual and performing arts have an intrinsic value that makes them indispensable in every student’s education. They inspire self-confidence and help keep students interested in school;

The arts assist students in learning other subjects and disciplines and can improve student performance in other subject areas. The arts engage a wide variety of students, including those who may be more difficult to reach students; and,

Through their exposure and knowledge of art forms, students can experience and enjoy the arts throughout their lives.

Our comprehensive arts education program has two components: (1) subject specific arts instruction in visual arts, drama, music, and dance; and (2) instruction integrating arts with other core subjects.

While we believe that the visual and performing arts need to be well integrated into the curriculum, we also believe that students need to be exposed to specialists skilled in the arts. Students need to understand the essential elements, knowledge, and skills of the arts disciplines. Our arts specialists offer students weekly instruction in the visual arts, drama, music and orchestra.

In addition, integrating the arts and other core subjects strengthens the achievement of instructional goals. Building connections through the arts gives students opportunities to understand and discover relationships between and across the disciplines. Integration of the arts provides opportunities for thinking, feeling, and doing that enable students to perceive ideas or concepts through different lenses. By discovering and using authentic connections between subjects, students can gain deeper understandings; they learn that various disciplines may look at similar issues, ideas, concepts, or events from distinct perspectives and apply different methodologies to that analysis.

Garden

The main goal of the garden program at The Open School is to deepen children’s understanding of the natural world. Originally inspired by the Life Lab Curriculum developed in Santa Cruz, California, the garden program now takes its curriculum from a variety of outside sources and integrates the themes that take place in each individual cluster.

The Life Lab Garden program is an integral part of the science curriculum at The Open School. Our garden — an outdoor lab that includes a pond, fruit trees, cactus garden, California wildflower garden, herb garden, vegetable beds, a rose garden, an insect and butterfly garden, greenhouse, tool shed, and worktables — is a center for students’ hands-on instruction about how animals, plants and environments are interconnected. Students design and carry out experiments, maintain a weather station, and keep summaries of their activities in lab journals. They gather data about dynamic processes happening in the garden, which they process statistically as graphs, histograms, maps, and written reports. Through this hands-on gardening experience, students strengthen their observation and classification skills and see natural patterns such as the food chain, the seasonal cycles of growth, watershed study, decomposition, and soil differences in their real-life context.

In addition to the main garden area, we have separate sections representing the four main ecosystems of California. These were planned through collaboration with Tree People and Mia Lehrer and Associates and continue to be refined and planted. Our students are involved in the care and maintenance of all the gardens on our campus. The purpose of the students maintaining the gardens is not just to take ownership and pride in the campus, but also that they may experience important teachable moments such as the life cycle of plants.

Our garden specialist works with the regular classroom teachers to integrate garden science with other subjects. Students learn math by doing such things as calculating germination rates, estimating seed production, measuring garden beds, and mapping the natural ecosystems. Art is brought in when the students create botanical illustrations in a scientific way. Students learn about the cultural significance of plants in different time periods throughout history. Students keep garden journals that include record keeping of their experiments and reflections on their experiences in the garden.

Our Life Lab Garden makes science relevant and enjoyable. It reinforces concepts through deep experiences rather than through the rote learning of facts and supports a balanced curriculum in the physical, earth and life sciences.