Firstly, apologies for the long gap between posts – the Inter State travel finally caught up with me it’s taken me a few days to work out a) what day it is b) what’s the time difference and c) which way is up and which is down!
My final week in the US was another exceptional week as I moved from LA to Dallas Texas. My hosts this time are the lovely staff and Pupils of Booker T Washington High School.
Nestled with the heart of Dallas, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts boasts the honour of being the first institution in the Dallas Arts District and the only school. The school, again like the two previous school’s I visited, has a dual emphasis on arts and academics and has produced a stellar list of famous graduates including R&B vocalist Erykah Badu; jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove; and, members of the gospel group “God’s Property”. Other noted graduates are dancer Jay Franke; cellist John Koen; visual artists Chris Schumann and Chris Arnold; drummer Aaron Comess; and musicians Edie Brickell of the “New Bohemians”, as well as Grammy Award winner, Norah Jones.
The first day I was there, the school was closed for a teacher training session. It was intriguing to see that created methods of teaching and team building where not limited to just the students! Topics discussed during this session included “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and “Can a Holistic Approach to Education Really Lead to True Health?”. Other sound bites that came up included:
– It takes creative teachers to teach creative children
– Time must be invested to make sure teachers remain motivated and creative
– True long term learning is only achieves when using all 5 senses to teach
Food for thought.
At this school I learned a substantial amount about the sociology of the school and how it relates to that of the local area it’s sits in. Dallas is a city with an extremely high ethnic population. It’s citizens are mostly Hispanic, followed by African American and then white, however this isn’t totally mirrored in the school where 49% are white. Having said that, it’s still an extremely diverse school in terms of gender, race and economics. I was again really pleased to be visiting another school with a 100% graduation rate with 98% of students then going on to higher education.
One thing that did differ at this school was the participation of me the teaching faculty for one day! the poor, poor students were subject to a lesson for me on how to speak with a Birmingham and Standard English accent. There’s video evidence somewhere but I’m not brave enough to post it on the internet yet!
I’m now in Ghana on the second leg of my trip looking at performing arts in schools at an embryonic stage. I spend today at the National Theatre and will be visiting a specialist music school this week. More on that (with pictures) over the next few days