Visual & Performing Arts

Mrs. Pat Brown Choir Room S210 email: pobrown* Read Handbook	Mrs. Rebecca Davidson Band Room S215 email: rdavidson*	Mr. Jeff Koltutsky Art Room M106 email: jkoltutsky* Visit Website
Ms. Kyra Boyer Drama Room S106 email: kboyer*	Mr. Darrell Townshend Strings Room S209 email: dtownshend* Read Handbook	Mr. Brian White Band Room S215 email: bwhite*

Norhidayah Bte Noor Electives Aide

The Singapore American School provides a liberal arts education for all students with opportunities for explorations and extensions in a variety of areas. In terms of arts education, SAS believes it is important to regularly provide support within three critical areas:

1. Learning about the arts through development of understanding and skills

2. Experiencing the creation of the arts through student performances and exhibits; and

3. Appreciating professional arts experiences as an audience member

In regard to “learning about the arts”, a quality arts education at SAS provides the following areas of support for all students:

1. Developing skills and techniques that are appropriately challenging within an arts discipline;

2. Understanding the communicative and expressive values of an art form;

3. Experiencing conceptualizations involved in the production of a work of art;

4. Establishing critical and analytical skills related to the quality of an art work;

5. Recognizing the context (e.g., cultural, historical, political) in which an art work is created by an artist or group of artists;

6. Appreciating the connections and inter-relatedness of the arts in other disciplines and in the world in which we live.

In regard to “experiencing the creation of the arts”, a quality arts education at SAS provides the following areas of support for all students:

1. Recognizing the scope and the depth of what is required in the production of a work of art;

2. Responding to the commitment and responsibilities that are required in the production of quality art work;

3. Experiencing the interaction of a performed/produced work of art and an audience;

4. Developing confidence in one’s self as an expressive communicator.

In regard to “appreciating professional arts experiences”, a quality arts education provides the following areas of support for all students:

1. Experiencing high quality professional experiences within all of the arts disciplines;

2. Interacting with professional artists (e.g., artists-in-residence, guest speakers) to understand the craft and discipline that is involved at a professional level;

3. Reflecting on one’s own experience and understanding of professional art work;

4. Developing an appreciation for the arts within the context of quality of life.

Beliefs About the Importance of Arts Education for ALL Students:

1. The arts teach children how to think in the ways they learn best (i.e., through direct physical experiences of movement, sound, and images, allowing them to respond in the same concrete ways, while at the same time conceptualizing, solving complex problems, making decisions, and thinking creatively);

2. Arts education provides natural learning opportunities for students with all styles of learning and all kinds of intelligences;

3. The kind of thinking fostered by education in the arts is in increasing demand in a complex, rapidly changing, diverse and media-oriented world;

4. The arts teach students to know themselves and their cultural heritage and to better understand and appreciate others living in different times, places, and cultures;

5. Study in the arts fosters self-esteem in students by developing valuable character traits that include self-discipline, perseverance, risk-taking, cooperation, and pride in accomplishment;

6. Arts education is the best way to help students to effectively blend intellect with emotion (i.e., the arts offer the opportunity for “peak experiences” not easily achieved in other disciplines);

7. Music, art, drama, and dance are a natural phenomenon, universally present in all human societies, past and present; and it is through this contextual experience of the arts that students develop an understanding for the world and know what it is to be fully human.