Curriculum.  Is there a word that grabs our attention more quickly?  Especially when the choices are so rich and, potentially, overwhelming?

Well, what would you expect from a word that means “race course”!  Yes, curriculum comes directly from the Latin verb currere—to run.  Common words such as “current” and “courier” come from the same root.

A curriculum is indeed a course of study.  The problem comes when we make it a “race-course” of study.  The root of the word is all the more meaningful when we’re frantically trying to keep pace with our curricular designs.

Stop!  People don’t choose a curriculum in order to run a race.  That’s one of the benefits of studying the Fine Arts: the history of music, theater, painting, architecture, dance.

Both teacher and student accept, going in, that it’s impossible to cover it all.  And it’s not necessary.  Remember that old adage about how one learns more in a museum by spending an hour in front of a single painting than running from gallery to gallery?  It’s true.

When our children get to know one movement of a Beethoven symphony, their ears gain a key to unlock centuries worth of music.  If they see how a little book of lines and stage directions turns into Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, they have insight into Western drama.  The ability to identify a jeté gives a child a foothold (no pun intended) into appreciating dance in any form.

And the day your student describes the “pretty” façade of an early 20^th century building as art deco, you’ll be seeing analytical skills that apply across the academic disciplines.  It doesn’t matter if that building is in Prague or in downtown Meridian, Mississippi!

Each ingredient goes a long way in the Fine Arts.  We assemble building blocks in the historical study of the Fine Arts.  Not a race course.