Period 5: 9th/10th Grade Art Studio

I’m spending Period 5 with Mrs. E. I’m full and re-energized from my packed lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on sourdough, grapes, and kettle-cooked chips (I was really playing the part, huh?). 

There’s fabric over the overhead lights to create a more pleasant lighting effect. How wonderful that I haven’t had to wait until the art class to see paintings and drawings on the wall! For this class, add to the usual suspects a Rainer Maria Rilke quote, the classic Dostoyevsky quote that “beauty will save the world,” and student art sprinkled amongst famous works. The students are practicing shading today. They’ve been working with graphite and they’ll be moving to charcoal soon. Students work and chat with each other here and there. The teacher observes, answering students’ questions at their easels when they ask and offering comments as she walks by too (“Start with this”; “Lighten this part, but I like how dark this part is…”; “You can hold it like chalk…”; “Use this to smooth out your transition…”). 

I wonder what knowing this skill will lead to, and then I turn around and see a beautiful landscape sketched by a student using the same medium that the students are currently working with. I glance somewhere else and see a fun painting of Mickey and Minnie Mouse having lunch on a balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower. The students are gaining the skills they need to create their own canvases of beauty… perhaps canvases that will save the world! I see a student look at her work and then lean over to her friend and say, excitedly, “I think this looks good!” 

I smile. I think so too. Hands are washed, and artwork is put away.

Period 6: 10th Grade Chemistry

Galaxies cover some of the overhead lights while the other lights are turned off. There’s a couch and plants everywhere. I gladly take a seat on the couch and look around. 

Two of the posters adorning the walls are an illustration of the anatomy of the atom and the periodic table of elements. There’s a bookshelf filled with chemistry and physics books, but there’s also books about virtue. The word of the week is “quixotic;” I’m not sure if this is for this class or for something hosted in this classroom. 

Mr. F reviews homework with the class. They are learning about molality and concentrations. 

Once they work through a few problems, we go over to the lab, which is right next door. The students have an opportunity to see concentrations in action. These sodium acetate solutions were heated the day before and then cooled, allowing for crystallization. 

The students compete to see who can make the tallest crystallized structure. Some students create structures that are 18 inches tall! 

After many oohs and ahs and let me trys, we return to the classroom to answer any final questions about the homework. Chemistry class is a place where students take concepts about nature and see them in action. It is also a place where students learn that reality and objective truth exist and can be known.

Join me next week as I continue describing my day in the life of a student at Founders Classical Academy! Be sure you subscribe to our email newsletter so that you never miss an update.