Monday, December 13, 2010

Pasadena: Revised Images of Excellence (1996) Mike Rose

I feel like throughout the education unit I have spoken about my high school a lot. I unconditionally loved New World School of the Arts. It was an amazing school dedicated to the best interests of the students. It was a performing arts high school so we were separated into academies. I was in the the visual arts academy while my best friend was a musical theatre major. We studied what we were interested in. Like Pasadena high school we had to take regular academic classes like chemistry and foreign language but the teachers knew how to grab our attention and teach us these humdrum lessons in ways that we could both understand and even like. Yes I said it I enjoyed learning chemistry because my teacher would teach us about solvents and solutions which actually helped when it came to mixing paints and working with the weird solvents in the sculpture and ceramic department.  Alena Bayramyan, a sophomore who emigrated from Armenia said “ This program is so special, the teachers don’t want you to get  a low grade. They really care about you. It’s like we’re a family.” I can promise you that Alena will always feel this way about her teachers and say that they have changed her life. I remember giving a speech at my graduation and saying something almost exact about the about the art faculty. They were my family, My teacher Mr. Wyroba had become my second dad. He cared about me so much always making sure I was on top of my grades and if I was absent he would call to make sure I was feeling okay. I called him Daddy Y, and he was that to me, a father. Sometimes I felt that he was more a father to me than my own dad, because I spent so much more time with him. My sculptor teacher on the other hand was like a brother. He had recently graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art and he was the most inspirational, helpful person you could ever meet. Any idea I had wasn't big enough, he made me believe I had the potential to go bigger, to achieve more. It was because of Mr. Loveland, but I called him Mr. Lovely man that I was confident enough to pursue art in college. But I call him like a brother to me not just because of his age but also because he was a practical joker and a prankster. We would constantly be pulling pranks and tricking one another. I always felt comfortable with him.
Reading about the making of the business cards was actually really interesting, We made business cards in my high school graphic design class, I still keep some in my wallet to this day. Dimple and Lynita remind me of me and my best friend Liza Marie. We were the goofballs of the class but inseparable. Lets just say our business cards came out looking quite similar. But the whole process of concentrating and biting the lip and being extremely focused is true. You have to be precise and perfect after all “this is you selling yourself to someone who may never even meet you. Make yourself good” Ms. Piscal would say throughout the project. “ the central importance of learning how to learn, how to reason, and how to investigate complex issues that require collaboration, personal responsibility, and a tolerance for uncertainty.” this is a beautiful quote because of how true it is. Art requires you to not only learn but master all these things. Schools like Pasadena High School and New World School of the Arts have a lower drop out rate because of their caring teachers and their aim to interest the student in a way regular schools cant. 

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