The New Prep Times 1 | Page 19

MOREcreativity dial! ART! Crank up the Ali Berke Ersözlü Henry Glassie says, “All art is an individual's expression of a culture. Cultures differ, so art looks different.” As you can understand from this quote, people need to understand art for understand their culture. So in order to be culturally aware and informed, students should have as much One of exposure to art as possible. And RC has a strong art department with classes in RC's photography, sculpture, music, and studio art. It’s impressive for a high school most but is it enough for a world class high school? important According to LP9 student,Mehmet Can Olgaç, RC should have more art. Mehmet can wants to see exhibitions while learning. Is Mehmet Can’s dream possible? Mrs. Halicioglu says, “It’s so hard to go to exhibitions because they need to be near RC and we learn about exhibitions on the last day.” There are exhibitions of student work in the cafeteria, Suna Kıraç Hall and Gould Hall but RC art teachers don’t visit them with their students while teaching. rooms. Taken by writer Lots of students want dance classes to be added to the course offerings and when asked if this is possible at RC, Ms.Hope-Brown, she said,“It’s not legal to have dance lesson in MEB (Turkish Education Government).” They can offer dance as a PE elective, but students usually prefer PE. As RC students know, only RC has the Creative Arts lesson in Turkey and Mrs.Hope-Brown said that they added this lesson with a special permission so RC they could ask for dance as well but they have one more problem, the schedule is students full. An STC member Ali Çataltepe asked for computer arts (e.g., Publisher Lay-out Programmes) and the response of the Art Department Chair, Ms.HopeBrown, said, ”RC has clubs for computers and also sometimes we put computer lessons in Creative Arts, but again we can’t have lessons for computers without the Education Government’s permission.” As you can see the RC Art Department is working in really challenging conditions. RC students know this isn’t new in Turkey so hopefully the Art Department can overcome this obstacle and offer new and more exciting art options. eagerly working on art. Taken by writer There are some good answer and hopefully one day students’ requests will be real but unfortunately The Art Department doesn’t tell their plans to us. When I asked, Ms.Hope-Brown to share their future plans,” Art teachers can not tell you future plans without a bigger art studio.”she says. And Ms. Orhon says, “It is hard to expand any of the facilities without building, and the school has great difficulty getting permission to build anything new because of the location of the school. So in the near future, I doubt we can expand the facilities.” It shows Art Department can’t have their request in soon time. But w