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Amazing things are happening around a little schoolhouse on Highway 213, a charming old building with sturdy bones and a brilliant future. The 1927 Carus School is going to be restored to its original architectural integrity (along with some modern ADA compliance requirements) to become a community center for students, parents and citizens of Carus and the surrounding area. The restoration is exciting on it's own, but the magic lies in the remarkable way the building will be transformed and how it demonstrates a first step in a truly extraordinary way of educating!
It's called Service Learning, a learning initiative where students learn through involvement in a specific project. The project results in a positive, tangible outcome that builds community. Recent research has shown that learning occurs by doing; the experience helps information become knowledge. At Carus children will be doing authentic projects (activities that have real-life applications) to assist in the Carus Building's restoration. While learning about the process of research, students will be using the Carus Building as a topic. The information they gather will be compiled into a printed brochure that will serve as an informational pamphlet available to the public at the future community center. Other students are learning the history of the building by interviewing local seniors who attended Carus School in its early days. This information will be applied to restoring the building to exact replication of its original design. Students may apply real math skills while working directly with building and landscape architects. By researching, planting and caring for a historic reproduction garden, children learn the principles of science. The list of "applied projects" can go on as long as teacher and administrator's creativity allows.
Although the model of Service Learning is fairly new to Carus Elementary, art-integrated education is not. Carus has had a long and successful tradition of arts in education, but in the last few years Principal Mary Hochstetler has spurred a resurgence of momentum to do more. Due to her guidance and determination, Carus is on the path to becoming an Arts Magnet School, which means that in the future, all curriculum will be taught by using the arts as a way to get at all
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