The school had 295 students at the end of the year but there’s a declining enrollment. The largest enrollment was 9th graders. There’s a high transition level in the city. Plus there are elective schools in Oakland. There was high turnover this year.
The 9th grade was large — so we did exploratory art. The class was divided into fours — each of the arts had a fourth of the class and we moved them around throughout the academic year. Each student was exposed to each discipline (art, band, drama, dance,) Some kids didn’t like visual arts — preferred piano. The dance program was predominantly girls. Our vocalists were predominantly African-American girls. The African-American boys went into digital sound/band. That left predominantly boys in my class, especially Latin boys and a few Latin girls and a few African-American boys and girls.
My challenge as an educator was how to challenge Latin boys with their whole culture and subculture. I found out a lot of the boys loved cars. We have a car museum right outside city limits — The Blackhawk Automotive Museum. It’s gorgeous. The Museum graciously paid for our transportation for the day and for admission to the museum.
We did a Wheels Project: I had them do storyboards on wheels and fenders. This made the students very acute in their observational drawing. “Whatever!” It’s a way to reach them…
Some of the students were good in math — I’d say you could be an engineer. No, I just want to be a mechanic. They don’t understand how math could be combined with the drawing.
I brought in guest speakers – in regular academic class, you don’t have time to pull that in. Being the regular arts teacher in the building you can bring these resources for the students. The regular classroom teachers have students who are all tested with standardized tests, so those teachers are benchmarked every month. For me, the math and drawing can dovetail and really make a difference for the students. I can bring in speakers, college reps who talk about careers. Whether they go into art or not, I expose them to possibilities in different careers.
