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Getting Through School with Art
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Ellen Mulholland
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Last Updated on May, 14 2008 at 01:17 PM
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Records show that around 15 public arts projects are currently being
funded by the city of Oakland, costing more than $3.5 million. Measure
DD funds about half while the remaining budget is funneled through
various grants and other categories. Clearly, art is closely tied to
Oakland’s sense of pride.
It’s no wonder then that the same fervor infects the town’s youngest citizens. JT, a United for Success Academy 8th
grader, is excited about attending Skyline High School next year. This
quiet student who has struggled with low grades and who typically takes
his education one year at a time is committed to one thing – a wide,
bright mural slowly evolving in the center of campus. |
Records show that around 15 public arts projects are currently being funded by the city of Oakland, costing more than $3.5 million. Measure DD funds about half while the remaining budget is funneled through various grants and other categories. Clearly, art is closely tied to Oakland’s sense of pride.
It’s no wonder then that the same fervor infects the town’s youngest citizens. JT, a United for Success Academy 8th grader, is excited about attending Skyline High School next year. This quiet student who has struggled with low grades and who typically takes his education one year at a time is committed to one thing – a wide, bright mural slowly evolving in the center of campus. This Oakland teen tells a visitor that the 25-foot mural depicts images of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, two Latino artists who serve as inspirations for the largely Hispanic student population. He elaborates on the imagery: “It’s all where everything starts, from our mother’s stomach.” A reclining fetus rests in the mural’s center as reproductive tubes branch outward like limbs on a tree. A blank scroll sits at the far right corner of the mural awaiting completion so student names can be listed.
Inside the school building, one flight up, a wash of Spanish to English to Spanglish conversations can be heard across the crowded classrooms. Formerly Calvin Simmons Middle School, OUSD opted to rename and restructure the campus into two distinct programs in 2006. The other school on site, Peralta Creek Middle School, focuses more on leadership, while United centers on collaboration and project-based learning. The divide has allowed the large campus to micro manage two smaller groups of 200-300 students each – as opposed to a sprawling population of nearly 700 that had earned the school a reputation for low test scores and high discipline rates.
United students can regularly be seen walking to and from school along a nearly mile-long stretch of 35th Avenue from International Blvd. to Foothill Blvd. in dark green polos and khaki trousers. Walking amongst a crowd of 6th to 8th grade students after school, one observes a sense of pride and respect. Students discuss improvements in their grades during the past several years, but know the journey is far from over. Many 8th graders, though clear on heading off to high school, remain unsure as to whether they will make the leap to college. For most of them, they would be the first in their family to do so. Art would have a lot to do with it.
“For all of our mural artists, this is their passion and their strongest association with school," says Principal Phil Cotty. "As a result, they have almost perfect attendance and are trying to maintain their grades. They also have developed pride in their graffiti as an art form and now discourage others from tagging walls and bathrooms because it is vandalism rather than art.”
There's an example in action out front. Artist Kaya Fortune is working with some kids to remove graffiti and restore the art on a ten-year-old and 15-feet-long mural.
David Cedeno, an after-school teacher with Aspiranet, an organization that works with students, school, and their communities, runs the “Mouse Squad” and Arts Program three days a week in an upstairs classroom that might seem neglected except for about a dozen brand new fully loaded Macintosh computers. A corner locked cabinet houses a variety of art materials including spray paint and magic markers to be used by the 20 – 30 students who fill the lab after school each day.
Cotty notes that Cedano and Fortune have successfully given some vandal taggers enough pride in their own art that they now inform other taggers that: “it's not cool to scribble tags all over the place.” He adds, “This is still an uphill battle.'
The students, who voluntarily stay after school with Cedeno to work on various art projects, including designing anti-war posters on photoshop, have created somewhat of a family here. They compliment one another’s work, collaborate on projects and ideas, and joke easily with each other. When Cedeno tossed one boy his keys so he could run back upstairs to ensure they had locked the lab’s door, the boy remarked, “Hey, why does it always have to be a Mexican?” Everyone laughed. They were all Latino, including Mr. Cedeno whose roots extend to Costa Rica.
The familiarity with which students and staff treat each other serves to build pride in their work. The current mural project on campus is not the first. Fortune, who teaches during the day on site as part of a MOCHA grant, has been collaborating with United students for about a year. But he began the Rivera/Kahlo mural less than two months ago. He and JT sketched out the design and students began painting in the colors. Within days, someone tagged the mural, but they cleaned that up quickly. No one has marked it since. Still, when asked how he thinks his classmates will honor the completed piece, JT simply shakes his head indicating tagging is just something kids at the school do.
Classmate and fellow artist Kim, a 6th grader, also worries about what kids might do to Frida Kahlo’s uni-brow. “But that’s her,” Mr. Cedeno offers.
“True, true,” Kim responds. She then proceeds to work on a small canvas of her own.
Cedeno says the school began a new policy on tagging recently. If a student is caught marking on school property they risk a five-day suspension or their parents can come and clean up the graffiti with them. “It’s pretty much died down now,” he laughs.
According to Cedeno, his small after school program at United has come far. When he first arrived, he assigned his students a small task of creating a logo that represented two parts of their lives. What he got from one student was drug dealers and murder – that boy has since received a “safety transfer” off campus. Another student drew images depicting suffering and graffiti. A cloud with chains melting into raindrops spelled out his name. Cedeno raises his eyebrows and shakes his head at the memory. “He’s something,” he says. That boy was JT.
Interested in helping your child develop his or her artistic talents? Check out the new issue of OAKBOOK and a listing of art programs in town this summer. |
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RECOMMEND
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OAKLAND
OAKKIDS
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