SOUTH OTSELIC – Eighteen students in the Otselic Valley School District had the chance to participate in a new and different type of class this semester. The students took part in a class titled “Listening with the Heart,” and during the week of May 21-25, they will have the chance to display the work they completed throughout the fall semester.

The class, “Listening with the Heart,” was taught jointly by art teacher Mary Helen Blake and English teacher Michael Foor-Pessin. Throughout the semester, the students created two major pieces of art work, a mask and a large acrylic painting.

“These fabulous works of art are the products of a semester-long investigation into the disciplines of studio art, communications, psychology, and cultural anthropology,” Foor-Pessin and Blake explain in a write-up for the art show. According to the release, the students studied the philosophy of a Vietnamese philosopher, Thich Nhat Hanh, and learned about compassion, loving kindness, mindfulness and meditation “to identify their internal energy centers.”