Exploring Art Across Cultures Among New Academic Course Offerings at St. Margaret’s

Grade 7 students are utilizing one of their electives in a semester-long course taught by Sherry Wagener titled Exploring Art Across Cultures. Middle School students will gain a deeper understanding of how art serves as a reflection of cultural beliefs and history, ultimately deepening their perspective on human expression through art.

The class will include fascinating elements of art and design, examining how these foundational ideas are defined in artworks from various cultural backgrounds. By learning to "read" art, students uncover the stories in the backdrop of historical culture found within different artistic works. 

Hands-on experiences are central to the class, allowing students to bridge unit lessons into their own art. For instance, students will engage in creating carved print blocks as part of a lesson on Chinese printing, translating their understanding of art techniques into personal tangible works. In addition, Middle School students will also explore the Incunabula, early European books after the invention of the Gutenberg Press, to gain an understanding of how art reflects and shapes human history and cultural identity.

Exploring Arts Across Cultures is one of several new electives available to students this year, a result of St. Margaret’s evolving curriculum based on faculty expertise and student interest. 

In the Upper School, several new electives were introduced this year in visual arts, computer science, world languages and more. They include Photography Honors, Studio Arts Honors, Introduction to Sports Psychology, Software Engineering and Advanced Chinese Studies.