Kids realize that the phrase “white is right” is not necessarily true. I’m white and I have a choice. I live as their neighbor with them. “What’s with that?” The students always question, “You live here?” Being a role model for that in the school per se is important. I’m educated, I have money — They think: we don’t get it. You have the ability to choose — I give those messages, guttural messages, life lessons. We are teaching children civility — civility is not there in the neighborhood, because gangs are taking over and intimidate. “But when you live among the population you teach/serve, that kind of in-your-face experience — you’re teaching civility.” So when kids leave the school — if in learning trigonometry, you learn the process, and the ability to complete something, to pass with recognition and fulfill the requirement that’s necessary for college or whatever you choose in life, if you learn those things in trigonometry and apply it in life; it’s great. In art, if students learn aesthetics, mutual respect, appreciation for others’ culture — (there are some 87 cultures in Oakland) — and if the kids become more sensitive to those cultures and all those in the classroom, then I know I’ve succeeded.
In a studio class – everyone is moving. Some respect the brushes, some don’t. That whole culture within the culture is what the teacher is facilitating. Affective Learning. Those are fundamentally important, and you get that in the art room because it’s a studio class where kids have the ability to get up and move. The ADA kid who’s chomping to move — even if it’s to get a brush. And understanding that that is one of your children in the classroom — as the person who knows the population, you, the art teacher, are there to service that child a little bit better.
Everyone has to realize that art has a greater impact in their lives than they realize. Latin population — the Latin population is the strongest culture I serve. They have a strong sense of their homeland — a lot go back and forth to Mexico and bring that culture to the classroom. They bring the Mexican mural and the souped-up car — in honoring them in the murals and all that — it’s easy because art is embedded in a lot of the children and in the family structure. The Black kids – it’s the same kind of thing but it comes in with the music — the hip-hop, the rap. That’s okay.
