(805) 963-4338
• EVERY STUDENT, EVERY CHANCE, EVERY DAY •
Dr. David E. Cash, Superintendent • 720 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 • (805) 963-4338
December 2006 News Archive
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Santa Barbara School Districts’ Fourth Graders may be Singing the Blues
Fourth-grade students at three local elementary schools will learn about the genre and roots of the blues when Santa Barbara Blues Society’s Daniel Lower visits Harding, Cesar Chavez, and Monroe schools in the days ahead. Students will also learn how to write their own blues lyrics. Mr. Lower, a professional local musician, will deliver a presentation based on the California content standards in arts, language arts, and social studies.
With cultural origins in West African music, the blues is based in the spirituals, field songs, and chants, brought by slaves to the South. Students will learn how the original blues, a unique vocal and instrumental form of music, evolved to modern blues and influenced other musical genres as it spread to northern urban areas during the 1900s.
Following is a schedule of upcoming school visits, each session lasting one hour:
- Harding Elementary School, Thursday, December 7, 2006, at 12:45 p.m.
- Cesar Chavez Charter School, Wednesday, December 13, 2006, noon.
- Monroe Elementary School, Thursday, December 14, 10:00 a.m. and again at 12:45 p.m.
This educational opportunity is made possible by the nonprofit Santa Barbara Blues Society (SBBS). Founded in 1977, the society is the oldest organization in the country that is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the African-American blues tradition. According to Jim Masker, SBBS board member, the society is underwriting the cost of the fourth-grade program by raffling a guitar that was donated by the Gibson Guitar Company. The funds will be used to provide at least 15 classroom programs during the 2006-07 school year.
Dos Pueblos High School Grad/Cal Scholar Receives National Professor of the Year Award
[The following excerpt is presented with the permission of the University of California-Berkeley. Astronomer Alex Filippenko, a Cal professor and 1975 graduate of Dos Pueblos High School, is a world-renowned expert on supernovae, black holes, galaxies, and cosmology. On November 16, 2006, Professor Filippenko, received the prestigious Carnegie Foundation-sponsored Professor of the Year Award.]
What makes an outstanding professor? Try theme songs for every class, 40 different T-shirts to introduce each day's lecture topic, flying doughnut demonstrations and, last but not least, what one student called “the ability to light the astral fire in undergraduates.”
These are just a few of the bonuses that University of California, Berkeley, professor Alex Filippenko sprinkles throughout his introductory astronomy class, which draws between 750 and 800 students per semester and earned him this year's Professor of the Year Award, sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and administered by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Announced today (Thursday, Nov. 16) at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., the award acknowledges “outstanding professors for their dedication to teaching, commitment to students and innovative instructional methods.” Four national winners are chosen, one each from two-year community colleges, four-year colleges, master's degree-granting institutions, and doctoral and research universities, the category for which Filippenko was chosen.
Complete article available at: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/11/16_case.shtml