Schools Adopt Art as Building Block of Education [NYTimes]
- Published: 01 October 2009
NEW HAVEN - Math students at the Christopher Columbus Family Academy learn about angles by measuring whimsical figures of hot-air balloons, paper airplanes and pinwheels built right into the walls of their school.
Seventh graders figure out direction by mapping the sculptures of the north, south, east and west winds that serve as compass points for the building. And fifth graders study astronomy by searching for Cassiopeia in an inlaid night sky that stretches across the lobby floor.
The Columbus school incorporates sculpture and other art into nearly every corner of its year-old building with the hope that it will inspire students in this working-class Hispanic neighborhood to learn. It is one of a growing number of newly built or renovated public schools across the country that look more like cultural centers than the austere, utilitarian houses of learning of the past, displaying museum-worthy pieces commissioned from artists alongside more traditional finger paintings and statues of school mascots.
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