In the schools
See how one school incorporated Maud Lewis into their curriculum.
When it comes to Maud Lewis’s paintings, even a non-verbal autistic student can find his voice.
Cirdan MacLeod is a Grade 5 student at Meadowfields Community School. Earlier in the school year he and his classmates studied folk artist Maud Lewis and her painting style.
At the conclusion of the lessons, students each painted a square, or section, of a Maud Lewis painting. At the end the squares were brought together to form replicas of her paintings.
But teacher’s aide Donna Boudreau says Cirdan – a student she describes as a special needs child who is autistic and non-verbal – decided to tackle a Maud Lewis painting by himself. Boudreau says his special needs do not hold him back. He tries all of the activities the other students are doing, they’re just adapted to his level. But this time he went over and above.
“He chose a picture to copy but the only thing was, he painted the picture by himself. He very much enjoyed this,” she says.
Her first thought was this was going to be very difficult for him. In the beginning, his work looked like black blobs on the page. But then it started to come together. “After about three classes he had a masterpiece. He had completed his version of Maude’s painting with great detail,” Boudreau says.
Cirdan is in teacher Albert Whittaker’s Grade 5 class. Whittaker says another teacher at the school was teaching kids about Maud Lewis as part of the language arts curriculum. He says teachers always try to do as much cross-curriculum teaching as they can in different subjects.
With the movie Maudie, Whittaker knew there would be added interest in Maud Lewis. He says in his class he expanded the lesson to include other local artists as well, and explore different cultures in communities.
Whittaker notes a lot of the students were familiar with Maud Lewis’s house having been located in Marshalltown, Digby County.
“They were extremely excited about that, along with experiencing the type of painting and the colours and the textures and talking about the feeling of the community and what was represented in her paintings,” he says. “We took some of her paintings and we divided them up into sections so they had to create their own and then put it together to create one big portrait. They were really excited to see what it would look like when it was all together. They did an excellent job.”
Asked about Cirdan’s painting, Whittaker says, “He amazes me everyday in his artwork and in his learning and what he can do. He loves painting. He loves being creative in a lot of his pieces.”
The Maud Lewis artwork by the students is on display in a hallway of the school where it has been getting excellent reviews from staff and other students.
Donna Boudreau says she’s pleased Cirdan’s work is getting well-deserved attention.
“He used a water base tempera paint which was very challenging at times because the water soaked the paper, but with help he was able to understand not to use a lot. He mixed his colors on a piece of scrap paper and then painted,” she says. “Disability doesn’t stop a child from learning.”