On a perfect summer’s day in 1998, in my last semester as a college student, I hiked through the five small towns on the Italian Rivera - Cinque Terre. I painted watercolor sketches on the pebble beach overlooking the deep blue water. I ate pesto over linguini for the first time around the table with my fellow travelers. As the sun set, I climbed on the volcanic rocks in the evening and watched the stars-cape come into focus over the Ligurian Sea. It was the end of my college days and the dawn of a new millennium. I couldn’t wait to start my career and for the 21st Century to begin. As the summer ended and I entered the real world as an art teacher, I did not realize how much I would miss that perfect summer’s day of a bygone millennia.
Since I began my career as an art teacher, arts education has always been about equal opportunity. Fine Arts has historically been part of the hidden world of the upper class while Arts Education has been the counter-force which shatters those cultural barriers. While all students benefit from arts education, it uniquely speaks to students lost in the cracks. The high energy student who drives her teacher and parents crazy or the daydreaming student who is disengaged from the traditional learning environment which is too slow for his fast paced brain. Visual and performing arts classes have been a refuge for these types of students in the 21st Century. This is the mission of arts education.
Here is the 2016-2017 overview for the Fine Arts Education Act Program: http://bit.ly/2abElTY
Our new educational initiative including the Arts and STEM programming is call the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program (21st CCLC). This 21st CCLC Program focuses on high risk students on the verge of being lost in the cracks of poverty or who struggle with academics. This project involves teachers, local artists, scientists, and other community folks all totaling over 100 stakeholders in the project.
Here is the 2016-2017 overview for the 21st CCLC Program: http://bit.ly/29HEBqr
This 21st CCLC is a massive undertaking. It is truly a project which will require one community working together with the schools. After seventeen years into 21st Century, we are learning that we were not meant to go into our corners to think about ourselves all day… We need to be part of a community. We were meant to be around the table with our fellow travelers… and sometimes we were meant to get up from the table and work towards big plans together like the greater good. This is the Mission Moment of our new 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Tyson Ledgerwood
Elementary Fine Arts Coordinator
Hobbs Municipal Schools
There will be an Art Reception at the Lea Regional Medical Center's Medical Arts Plaza.
Click on the picture above for highlights.
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