(The story below appeared in the Winter 2008 edition of our school's quarterly Alumni & Friends Association Newsletter)

Saint Francis Xavier School has always had a special relationship with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. SFX is the elementary school in this city closest to the world famous museum. As a matter of fact, the first SFX School, which was housed in the basement of the original SFX Church at 25th & Biddle Street, was located near the present day grand front steps of the museum. Many children from SFX School have been filmed at the museum greeting Santa Claus during the Thanksgiving Day Parade or running down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway trailing Rocky Balboa as he prepared to run up the famous steps in Rocky II. For many years, classes from SFX have regularly visited the museum.

This past September, our principal Dolores Butler was notified that the relationship between the museum and our school was entering a new and exciting phase. After many months of discussion, we learned that Saint Francis Xavier School was to be the first Catholic School in the city formally adopted by the great museum. The object of the Adopt a School Program is to afford elementary school students an understanding of the relationship between the creative arts and various academic disciplines.

In the Adopt a School Program, emphasis is placed on the concept of analyzing the creative arts – not as things that exist in a vacuum - but as they are: necessary parts of real life. Art concepts are integrated into various academic subjects such as mathematics, earth sciences and language. For example, during our 7th grade class' first visit to the museum, 15th century Florentine artist Davide Ghirlandaiol's painting Madonna and Child was considered by the class and the importance of geometric considerations in the work was the focus of discussion. The techniques involved in presenting a three dimensional image using a two dimensional medium, and the concept of vanishing point, were central to that discussion. At the conclusion of the session the students were given an opportunity to demonstrate how they would go about meeting such challenges. On another occasion our students had the opportunity to view the museum's Buddhist Temple and the various geometric figures such as triangles, circles, hexagons, trapezoids that are present in the ceiling. According to present plans, students in Grades 5, 6, 7, and 8 will visit the museum three times during the academic year for classes dealing with similar topics.