On her first day back from winter break, eighth grader Delilah Larson stepped off her bus and onto the Archer campus. As she attended each of her classes, she reunited with the familiar faces of her classmates and teachers. However, when it came time for Larson to head to her arts elective, she walked past the film classroom she had grown accustomed to and instead hurried down the arts hallway to greet photography teacher Marya Alford.
As the second semester began, all middle schoolers began attending new art electives. These electives are spaces dedicated to refining a student’s work in one discipline, whether it be dance, music or writing. Once students enter upper school, they can continue pursuing the same elective or fill their schedules with upper school-exclusive disciplines such as computer science, for example.
While these upper school electives are yearlong, middle school arts courses last one semester. This system encourages the younger members of the Archer community to try multiple activities that interest them before they commit to a singular elective in upper school.
Middle schoolers do not get to decide which electives they will take, but they can provide insight into their interests through ranking their top four choices in a course request form. From there, the Middle School office assigns each student to one elective per semester. Larson took Film 8: Film and Television during the first semester and is now beginning Photo 8.
“I remember feeling really, really excited because I love taking photos,” Larson said. “I don’t have a camera, but I use my dad’s a lot, and I just remember feeling so excited seeing all the photos on the wall. And the teacher is so lovely.”
As Issie Stone’s (‘31) sculpture class came to a close and she transitioned into studio art, she said she was eager to create new connections. Stone’s studio art course includes students she has never shared classes with before, and she said she enjoys learning new techniques alongside them.
“In sculpture, everything was really fun. It was really fun to just make everything. It was messy and cool,” Stone said. “Then, in studio art, I love just sitting, hanging out with my friends … [I’ve learned] that I can make mistakes in art, and it will be fine.”
The arts classes students take in middle school tend to focus on teaching foundational skills in a more casual environment than upper school classes, which gradually increase in rigor as the year progresses.
Art teacher Talya Petrillo said the main goal of these electives is to give students a space to grow and explore. Many students come into their first classes without much experience, and Petrillo said she hopes to teach these students to approach their fears without hesitation.
“I hope for a lot of things for them, but a main thing is that they can be unafraid of what they’re making and feel confident in how they’re articulating their ideas. Especially in middle school, I try to organize projects so students can have as much fun with them as possible. I really hope students come away with feeling confident and unapologetic about their ideas, however wild they are,” Petrillo said. “For me, there are so many more exciting things than improving technically.”
As Larson begins her final semester before upper school, she said she has found the single-semester arts system very helpful in figuring out what classes she is interested in pursuing further during her time at Archer and beyond. She said her time in film class inspired a passion for film, and she hopes her time in photography will do the same.
“I definitely want to continue with film because I remember loving that,” Larson said. “I wanted to start it now so that I’d have the background information and knowledge. Going into next year’s semester, I’ll already know, ‘Oh, this is the teacher. These are the kind of things that they do.’ I think I’ll probably want to continue photography, but I might want to branch out and find some new things.”
When considering her students’ futures, Petrillo said she is glad they have the opportunity to explore multiple electives across their three years of middle school. Whether the soon-to-be freshmen choose to join studio art, Drama Queens or computer science in upper school, Petrillo said she hopes her students will discover a passion for the arts — as a viewer or as a creator — and develop skills that will serve them beyond their semester in her class.
“I never expect all of my students to pursue never-ending careers in visual arts. I just hope that they get something out of it — that it gives them confidence and a space to communicate and generate a new idea,” Petrillo said. “If they don’t like my class, that’s great. Maybe they like theater, or maybe they don’t like the arts at all, maybe they just want to be engineers, and that’s cool, too.”
