Leonard Bernstein at 100

For Principals

A common language for teaching and learning across your whole school.

You know that teaching quality drives outcomes. Artful Learning is a three-year professional development model, grounded in three decades of implementation that gives your teachers a framework for helping students master standards more effectively while building skills that outlast any single test: critical thinking, communication, and public speaking.

It is not a new curriculum, and it does not replace the one you are required to teach. Teachers map existing standards and initiatives into inter-disciplinary Units of Study built around a larger Concept, a compelling Masterwork, and a Significant Question. Students investigate content across disciplines, build an Original Creation that demonstrates their understanding, and reflect on what they learned and how.

For a principal, the power is not in any single lesson. It is in giving your whole faculty a shared way of planning, teaching, and assessing, and a professional learning community organized around improving instruction together. Foundational skills in reading and mathematics, along with social and emotional learning, are woven into everyday instruction rather than bolted on.

“Artful Learning is the engine that drives our school vision.”
— Principal, Vista, CA

What Your School Gains

• Greater student engagement. Students actively investigate content rather than simply receive it.
• Deeper understanding. Inter-disciplinary connections and higher-order thinking move students beyond mere recall to application, synthesis, and creation.
• More ways in for more students. Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and hands-on pathways let students with different strengths reach the material and show what they know.
• Stronger professional practice. Teachers receive sustained training in curriculum mapping, Unit of Study design, creative-thinking strategies, assessment, and collaborative inquiry.
• Existing investments work harder. Other major school investments—textbooks and remote resources—are leveraged through Artful Learning because teachers learn how to encourage more inspired engagement with them.
• Leadership capacity. Principals and leadership teams build the structures to guide implementation and share responsibility for it.
• Accountability intact. Required district and state assessments stay in place. Teachers add richer evidence of learning through portfolios, presentations, and student work.

A Pathway You Can Sustain

The three-year structure progressively develops teacher expertise, strengthens leadership, refines your Units of Study, and prepares the school to carry the model forward. By the end of year three, your educators can continue without ongoing trainer presence or a continuing fee. It is a capacity-building investment, not an indefinite dependency.

What Your Teachers Receive

Each year for three years, Artful Learning’s Trainers lead an immersive four-day Summer Institute for your teachers, return to your school for two on-site trainings during the year, and provide ongoing remote support in between. Training, Summer Institute materials, and year-round support are all included; your school manages implementation, not logistics. Separate from the Artful Learning fee, schools cover three in-school costs: paying teachers for their time at the Summer Institute, substitute coverage while teachers attend the school-year trainings (unless they are held on a scheduled professional development day), and classroom materials. These costs are assumed by the school or underwritten by fundraising. Each cohort accommodates up to 40 participants.

We work with schools and districts to identify grants and philanthropic partners that can offset the cost of participation. Cost should never be the reason a school says no.