Arts

Through gracious grants awarded by the Lake of the Woods Community Foundation and the Arts Council of Ontario, Keewatin Public School council and staff created a new initiative designed to expose students to a wide range of art disciplines called Artsploration, aimed at targeting all students from grades JK to 6.

This initiative was created to enrich the lives of our students and expose them to art in new and exciting ways. Artsploration is all about bringing diverse artistic experiences to every child.

We featured local artists and tailored projects to meet the needs and skill level of each age group. We introduced our students to four dynamic art disciplines: ceramics, taught by Amy Baldwin and Rebecca Beatty; dance, taught by Erin McQuaig. Music taught by Jada Siok, and ukulele, taught by one of our KPS teachers, Jane Zimmerman, and painting by Indigenous artist, Alicia Kerick.

This program offered valuable exposure to the arts, especially for students who may not otherwise have had this opportunity. Our children have truly thrived not only creating magical pieces, but also benefiting from enhanced creativity, boosted self-confidence, and a self of accomplishment while their art was proudly displayed around our school and in our community.

Artsploration helped Keewatin Public students explore beyond the forest school experience and helped to ignite a love of art exceeding traditional classroom experiences.

What I love most about the Arts Education Program here at DHS is the lifelong friends that I’ve managed to make. Some of my best friends, like, ever have come through getting the arts education that I have, and I hold that so close to my heart.

The Arts Program here at DHS has really helped me find a passion. It’s helped me come outta my shell a bit.

Being a lifelong visual artist, the arts program has really, like, helped me see new avenues into more arts. So, getting into dramatic arts, now I’ve found out I kind of wanna be an actor, so that’s awesome.

The Arts Program has helped me build self confidence. It has helped me build a community for myself as a student, and it has helped me understand that my voice has power or meaning, as an Indigenous student.

Music Education really starts in Grade 9. With Grade 9, you have the option of being in an open beginner class and learn all the instruments, or you come in with some background knowledge. The scaffold approach that we take throughout the whole four years of music really prepares students for not necessarily a life as a musician, but to give you positive options to be in music for the rest of your life, even if it just means a lifelong learning just to play music.

Hi, I’m Cyndy Palermo. I’m one of the Visual Arts teachers at Dryden High School and I’m here today to tell you why Arts are so important in high school education. In the Visual Arts program, students are exploring constantly; their critical thinking skills, their creativity, thinking outside the box, all of those elements that we’re looking for in people to create new things, whether it is doing some relaxing art and painting, or it’s coming up with an amazingly new engineered piece of equipment that somebody needs. All of those things stem from creativity, and that’s what the Arts Program at Dryden High School offers students, not just in visual arts, but in music and in drama. We’re putting things together. We are exploring different processes and making mistakes along the way, or finding amazing new things that nobody ever thought of before. Whether it’s music or plays or creations, art opens up your mind. It does also give you a nice place to relax, to form friendships and to explore your own creativity. And it’s really important. It’s fun and it’s something that’s not always recognized, like sports. You will have so many people who are so creative, but nobody knows ’cause they’re tucked away in an art room. So, taking Art builds culture, community in a school, lets people not be afraid to make mistakes, to explore new media, like little science experiments, playing with paints, a different paper and figuring things out, throwing things out if they’re no good,
and just having a little bit of fun. Art belongs with STEM to make STEAM. Arts, critical thinking, creativity, supports science, technology, engineering, and math. You can’t do those things without art.

Arts Education is exciting and important. I am so glad to work at Dryden High School as a Drama teacher and to watch students grow in their skills. Whether it is just becoming better at telling stories and talking in front of people, or putting on musicals, or traveling to see plays and shows. It’s always a great time for students to explore their creativity, to learn about themselves and the world around them.

I’m primarily involved in drama. I have taken classes with digital arts as well as photography over the years, but drama is my sort of forte.

So most recently, we did a student-run production of “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. That was a really neat thing to be in. It was fully student-run. The script was written by students, it was acted in, directed – the whole tech, all by students.

Last year we performed Three Musketeers. I believe our script was by Ken Ludwig, so it was sort of a funnier version. That was a really neat show to be in; have almost 50 people in it with the main cast, the ensemble and the second castings.

The people you meet along the way are certainly the best parts. It’s – you’re working with your buddies for so long, or if they weren’t your buddies going into it, they’re almost definitely your buddies coming out of it. You put in the hours, you’re always together, especially with our tech week, right before performance.

For Musketeers, it was 24 straight hours of rehearsing. Then obviously you have your people, you know, your weekends, you’re spending with all these nice people. You’re working towards something. You have a common goal. So when it’s all done with, it sort of feels like you’re missing that part of yourself.

I was able to write the script for A Christmas Carol. It’s our Christmas production that opens in December, if anyone would like to go. I got to write the script and now I get to see my words being acted out with people who I respect so much and I get to see it directed by someone I respect to the ends of the world and performed in the building I love, with people who I have come to love. So for me, that’s my most cherished moment.