Enabling creativity through the Artistic Focus
Showcase for 2018-2019
Please continue to
collaborate with all of us
in the Artistic Focus
Showcase in the Music
community on NAU
Creativity has its roots in diversity. Diversity in all
its many forms including, but not limited to,
varying learning styles, cultural heritage, and
language are celebrated through the plethora of
artistic endeavors being undertaken and the
associated achievements being enjoyed in our
NAE PK3 / Early Years through Grade 12 / Year 13
arts classrooms. ?
When thinking about diversity, we would first like
to look at the definition of diversity. Diversity as
defined in the Cambridge Dictionary: a condition
or fact of being different or varied; the fact of
many different types of things or people being
included in something; a range of different things
or people; the fact that there are many different
ideas or opinions about something.
Given this definition, the word diversity takes on
many shapes and forms. As educators in NAE, we
have many diverse opportunities to not only
explore diversity with our students but more so,
for the students to explore them with us. So how
does this tie in to creativity? Well, with our
Tracey Hainswort h
NAU Teaching Fellow (Visual Arts)
Head of Art
Windermere Preparatory School
students coming from a wide range of cultural,
social and emotional backgrounds, we are lucky
enough to be able to work with these children to
uncover so many different skillsets and talents. All
of our students are unique, and each has their
own approach to problem solving, and this is
something we need to understand as educators
when it comes to adopting an approach to
unleash their full potential.
Last year our Year One Kindergarten students
collaborated on a project titled ?Our Flag?. The
students studied the art and life of the artist,
Jasper Johns. As the students explored Johns' flag
paintings and learned about the stars and stripes,
they decided to create their own flag. They first
started painting stripes and making stars out of
collage. Then one of the students raised his hand
saying, ?Mrs. H, my family is from China?. It was in
this student-teaching moment that all of the
students started creating flags from their family?s
countries and covering the stripes on the flag.
?Our Flag? represents the families of these
students and all of our NAE family of schools.
Tim Hainswort h FRSA
NAU Teaching Fellow (Music)
Director of Middle School Music
Windermere Preparatory School