eLearning Through a Creative Lens

What do the Getty Art Museum in New York and Saint Viator High School share in common? Both created a challenge this month – inspired by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam – to recreate a favorite work of art with objects lying around at home. 

 

Welcome to the world of eLearning, where at Saint Viator, teachers were ahead of the curve, having created eLearning classes as early as 2017 for their international students who had returned home.

 

When Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered schools closed last month, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Saint Viator was ready to make the transition. The one thing administrators asked of teachers, was to engage students in thinking creatively when making their assignments.

 

“We wanted to continue our work towards the school's vision of discerning, discovering, and transforming, just in an eLearning format,” says Assistant Principal Michael Field. “It’s just like we strived to do in the building.”

 

Mr. William Faltinoski, chairman of the fine arts department, did just that. He had seen the Getty art challenge on Instagram and he set out to adapt the project for his students. In it, they took a virtual field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, where they had free reign to tour its many exhibits and select a piece that inspired them. He then challenged them to create their own interpretation, using objects from home.

 

“While taking a field trip to the Art Institute isn’t possible now, I still wanted students to experience original art,” Mr. Faltinoski says. “Having students recreate the art at home made them think about the art in terms of color, composition, and other elements of art and how they could recreate that.”

 

In the social studies department, Mrs. Maureen Martin had her AP World History students participate in a discussion board on Blackbaud. She ultimately offered them a Rasputin dance challenge to introduce the Russian Revolution. Mrs. Martin captured their responses in a fun collage.

 

Back in the Fine Arts Department, Mr. Vince Genualdi, band director, devoted a recent eLearning unit to the school’s fight song. With band students unable to play the remaining basketball games or at the spring sports pep rally, they dove into the familiar song’s history.

 

Turns out, there was a lot of history to mine. They learned about the original three students who composed the song, and they weren’t from the 1960s when Saint Viator opened. No, they go back to the 1920s, when the Viatorians ran St. Viator College in Bourbonnais and its administrators encouraged students to come up with a “good, lively college song.” 

 

To culminate the unit, Mr. Genualdi had his students upload a video of themselves playing the fight song, which he compiled into a video montage and shared with the wider Saint Viator community, where it ultimately reached thousands of people.

 

The familiar lyrics, he reasoned, could uplift people during this unprecedented time.

 

“In the words of Fr. Louis Querbes (founder of the Viatorians) and James Dalrymple '27 (lyricist), ‘Strive, strive with might and main,’ ” Mr.  Genualdi said, quoting from the song. 

“Don't forget that you are bold. You are defiant and you will conquer remote learning.”