Imagine having Leonardo da Vinci as your Middle School teacher.
He would have revolutionised cross-curricular education.
He had the perfect blend of art and science—the original STEAM educator before we even had the term. His famous anatomical drawings weren’t just art; they were scientific investigations. In his notebooks, precise engineering diagrams danced alongside artistic sketches, showing how beauty and function could intertwine.
Think about how he approached problems.
When studying birds for his flying machines, he combined:
• Biology (analysing wing structures)
• Physics (understanding airflow)
• Mathematics (calculating proportions)
• Art (detailed sketches to document findings)
• Engineering (designing mechanical solutions)
His Vitruvian Man isn’t just a beautiful drawing—it’s a mathematical study of human proportions, a blend of art and geometry that would captivate any middle school class. Imagine teaching sacred geometry through this lens!
Even his painting techniques were cross-curricular masterpieces.
The Last Supper isn’t just art—it’s a lesson in:
• Mathematics (perspective and proportion)
• Chemistry (paint composition)
• Psychology (human expression)
• History (religious and cultural context)
• Literature (biblical narrative)
The ultimate lesson from Leonardo? Knowledge isn’t meant to be compartmentalised. His notebooks show us that curiosity doesn’t respect subject boundaries—it flows freely between disciplines, just as our students’ minds should.
The “da Vinci approach” would work better in our classrooms today. Better than the subject-by-subject division that often occurs now.
