CREATIVE ARTS The arts represent something far more important than something to do with your hands, or in your spare time, or to wile away the hours while you chat with your friends. They are not only as serious and elevating as anything else we offer in the curriculum, they are an accessible training ground for the kinds of human interaction that will be necessary to flourish in the decades ahead. Our disciplines put a premium on the skills that are needed to answer the challenges of contemporary times, namely: •
creative problem-solving;
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task analysis and constructive critique in mediums that are intuitive, improvisational, inferential and context- based;
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focus on process as its own end, not just as a means to an end product;
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holistic articulation: a facile command of many media – not just the linguistic; and
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flexibility: the ability to move between realms with confidence.
We know that creativity is not just nice; it is necessary. The arts are not just for “the talented” – they are for those who will otherwise leave this place without a healthy skepticism about how “media” delivers a “message,” or how feelings and intuitions can be made manifest. The arts we teach educate the soul as well as the mind.
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Kingswood Oxford’s Course of Study 2021-2022 Page 52 of 73
