The
students are all at least Juniors, and must maintain a healthy and efficient
work ethic in order to have a substantial amount of art for the final examination
— twenty-four pieces for the AP kids, and twelve pieces and a completed
research workbook for the IB students.
The
caliber of these students is consistently high, and they tend to be involved
with other AP and IB courses. The workload and the commitment for AP and IB art
can seem immensely challenging, but the demands are not at all superfluous. The
students learn a great deal of responsibility and accountability that will
benefit them in their fast-approaching futures.
Also,
provided they keep up with the deadlines and participate in fundraising, the
students have a well-earned reward – the light at the end of the tunnel, as it
were – that awaits them at the end of May: a trip to the Big Apple.
Connie
Rohde has organized this trip since 2000, and she explains that the key to it
being a safe, beneficial trip is the trust and maturity that has been built-up
over the years leading up to the most advanced classes. The students raise the
money for the trip, which not only brings the group together but also helps
them appreciate the money they spend when they arrive. They forge relationships
with one another and with Rohde in the years they spend together. Then there is
the art that they will view in the city.
Beginning
students watch the AP and IB students prepare for the trip with the sort of awe
that one might associate with a child watching a parent prepare for an exciting
business trip.
The
trip lasts for about five days, during which the students and their chaperones
explore New York City and appreciate the magnitude and variety of the art in
the galleries and museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of
Modern Art are always full of culture and diversity, and the city offers
hundreds of galleries in Chelsea and other areas with individual artists on
display, some of which the students have studied in Art History. The students
also get an amazing, safe experience of the energizing sights, sounds and
smells of the City That Never Sleeps.
Well, maybe the city doesn’t, but the students certainly
do, after full, thrilling days in the art capital of the western world.