“You’re given like an artist or a sculptor from the Renaissance and you just recreate one of their projects,” sophomore Christian Quezada said.
For 15 years, social studies teacher Brad Raine has taught the Renaissance using his very own Renaissance project.
“The Renaissance project was just kind of an idea that I woke up with one day when I was student teaching,” Raine said. “I wanted kids to be interested in Renaissance art, but I wanted it to be geared towards what they liked, their type of art, their type of achievement.”
To Raine, this project is more than just teaching; he aims to teach students more than history.
“I want kids to have confidence and understand their abilities and that they can achieve way more than they think they could,” Raine said.
While working on his project, Quezada underwent a realization.
“I’m a better artist than I thought I was,” Quezada said.
Junior Ellasyn Mettling found comfort in the fluidity of the project.
“I remember at first I thought that it was crazy and that I was gonna hate it, but then I realized how many options there are, and then it was actually kind of nice,” Mettling said.
It is rather common for students to dislike their classwork however, the Renaissance project has the opposite reaction.
“I like it a lot, honestly, it’s pretty nice,” Quezada said.
Mettling did the project last year and also had some positive reflections.
“I liked how there was not very much structure, like you could just basically do whatever you want,” Mettling said.
Amidst the excitement, there is still some difficulty with the Renaissance project.
“The hardest part was choosing one of the pieces I was going to do, because he [Albrecht Dürer] has so many great paintings,” Quezada said.
As Quezada nears the end of his project, he does not have many concerns.
“I just hope that Raine likes it and thinks it’s good enough for an A,” Quezada said.
