The CTE program at Baltimore Design School begins in the 10th grade, when students enter into their Architecture, Fashion, or Graphic Design pathways.  A few times throughout the year, there is a strategic outreach from each pathway program to our middle school grades to offer exposure to the concepts and provide an opportunity for understanding […]

The CTE program at Baltimore Design School begins in the 10th grade, when students enter into their Architecture, Fashion, or Graphic Design pathways.  A few times throughout the year, there is a strategic outreach from each pathway program to our middle school grades to offer exposure to the concepts and provide an opportunity for understanding with the CTE pathway options are for high school.  In the fall, the high school teachers ‘push-in’ to the middle school classes to teach a lesson in that particular discipline.  In the spring, the middle school classes come into the design studios to work alongside the high school students as they work on an assigned project.  

The outcome is for middle school students to hone in on their interests and to which pathway is more aligned with their goals, so they know what they want to study when they apply for high school.

The BDS Architecture teachers, Ms. Zaeh and Mr. O’Harah ‘pushed in’ to Ms. Canal’s 7th grade class to teach a lesson on isometric drawings.  Ms. Zaeh was impressed, saying “It was really fun, just seeing them already having a really good understanding of the perspective of the concept of using the isometric dotted paper to create multidimensional drawings.  They designed collages onto landscapes, creating a more conceptual, imaginary paper landscape architecture piece for their portfolios.”

Ms. Canal noticed that her students, who are usually reluctant to take chances, jumped right in with both feet and were successful in executing the concepts.” It was also interesting to note that some of her students who were more advanced readers struggled the most with the technical concept of creating the multi-dimensional drawings.
This was also a great opportunity for our high school Architecture teachers to get to know the middle school students who might enter into their pathway program in just a few years.  Ms. Canal confirmed that “Several kiddos were definitely more interested in Architecture than they were before the visit.”

This fostering of connections and relationships leads to the best outcome: students who learn through nurturing and experience.  Ms. Zaeh summed up her classroom experience, saying, “I think they had fun with it, and they definitely made some great drawings!”