Art and C and SC

Ive been thinking back of how I have personally experienced C and SC. I have no recollection of this in highschool, although there may have been some well meaning teachers who tried. I guess the closest would be in college but I distinctly remember rules lots of rules and expectations clearly laid out.
The other night I was at dinner with the kids (pizza) and I started looking around and there was alot of art, mostly prints of famous paintings. But it brought back an art class I took 3 years ago.
It was at Princeton University (cont. adult ed, mostly for fun.) anyway that was truly an life experience in many ways. This class was my first experience of no rules, class directed and clearly social interpretation. This class was filled with so many different people from so many different backgrounds. I remember the first couple of classes being so distracted with my classmates trying to figure out their story, why they were there, where they were from etc, I knew why I was there but my story was clearly not as interesting as theirs. You need to put this in the back of your mind while I'm talking but I grew up in small town Alabama where ethnic diversity, economic, social are all about the same. Anyway, my professor was an Irish man from Jersey who fell in love with art and anything Italian so he changed his name and moved to Italy to study art and now spends his time traveling back and forth teaching for extra money. My table was of 6 people, me 2 Indian ladies who mostly talked to each other but one of them was getting married and she mostly spoke about the Indian wedding traditions they were planning( fascinating), a local teacher who was taking a sabbatical just for the hey, a older man from Hungary(by the way did you know Hungary is famous for Paprika )and an Italian woman who was visiting with her husband who was a professor at Princeton by invitation. Anyway, we would be given piece art to interpret as a group and then on our own try to copy. It was so much fun to listen to each persons view. They suggested things that would never of occurred to me and I'm sure my limited world experience I suggested things that did not occur to them. I never felt mine were as interesting but sometimes they did. In the end I loved seeing their finished product. I felt I understood better, what seemed so one sided became multi-dimensional. Since taking that class I look at art in a whole different manner, and this is how i can personally compare what it must be like to experience c and sc learning in the class. I truly believe it allows students, people a whole new way of looking at the world, learning and just experiencing everyday just like me in the Pizza place with my kids listening to them interpret the art on the walls.