ABORIGINAL ART AT CSIHSIS!

If you have been fortunate enough to visit our school recently, I am sure you have noticed the beautiful new displays of student art work. Recently, under the tutelage of our talented art teacher, Ms. Clara Gagliardi, our freshman students learned about aboriginal art, the art of the indigenous people of Australia. Throughout this unit students not only learned about the typical images and colors the Aborigines use in their art and why they use these natural images and colors, but also learned about and discussed the concept of social justice and how it relates to indigenous populations using the Aborigines of Australia as a case study. Interestingly, during this time, on two different occasions our school was visited by Australians; first by a group of 16 superintendents and other educators and then by a girls basketball team from an Australian boarding school. This also gave our students an opportunity to engage in discussions with Australians and have some of their questions about the land down under answered.

This is just one example of how our teachers internationalize the curriculum in each subject area and of how our students are delving into important global issues and learning about them from diverse perspectives. If you have not as yet seen this beautiful display, please come in and visit when you drop your child off in the morning or when you pick him/her up in the afternoon.

I invite our 9th grade students to share with us what you learned or what you enjoyed about this unit and creating "aboriginal" art . I thank Ms. Gagliardi for beautifully exhibiting our students' works of art, for empowering and motivating our students to be creative, and for helping them learn about the concept of social justice.