September 2006 News Archive

Friday, September 15, 2006

Dos Pueblos and San Marcos High School Teens Participate in Museum Mural Homage to Mexican Master Rufino Tamayo

On Saturday, September 16, 2006, at 4:00 p.m., the Santa Barbara Museum of Art will unveil an 8’ x 24’ mural created by students from the Santa Barbara School Districts and Santa Barbara City College. The mural, located outside the museum’s Park Wing entrance, is a tribute to the work of the late Mexican master Rufino Tamayo. The mural is a precursor to an upcoming museum exhibition of Tamayo’s work.

Student artists from Dos Pueblos and San Marcos high schools, Adrian Contreras, Andrea Gaines, Jaime Guerrero, Lauren May, Kenneth Roberts, and Janey Thompson, worked under the direction of Santa Barbara City College instructor/artist Rafael Perea de la Cabada as part of the museum’s 2006 Summer Youth Mural Project. Several of the six student artists were high school seniors and have since gone on to college. San Marcos High School student Janey Thompson, currently a senior, was on hand at the September 12 meeting of the districts’ Board of Education to share her experience working on this collaborative project.

Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), a Zapotec Indian from the state of Oaxaca, was a contemporary of Siqueiros, Rivera, and Orozco. An artist of worldwide acclaim, he is recognized as one of the finest colorists of his generation. In 1921 Tamayo obtained a job working in the Department of Ethnographic Drawings at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, where he was surrounded by the museum’s pre-Columbian collection. Of that experience, he said: “That was the real beginning for me because it exposed me to Pre-Columbian art – to the popular art of my country… From that moment on, it became the basis of my art.” In his paintings, sculptures, murals, lithographs, etchings, and mixographs, an infinite variety of textures and tones are used in Tamayo’s robot-like personages and forms that seemingly glide through space, as though reaching for whatever forces are there.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Santa Barbara School Districts to Kick Off Save A Life Emergency Preparedness Training Pilot Program

Fourth and Fifth Graders to Receive Training in 2006-07

At 10:30 a.m. on Friday, September 15, 2006, Santa Barbara School Districts Superintendent Brian Sarvis, Mayor Marty Blum, Save A Life Foundation president and founder Carol Spizzirri, Congresswoman Lois Capps, State Assemblyman Pedro Nava and others will meet at Monroe Elementary School to kick off Save A Life Foundation’s emergency preparedness training pilot program. A training demonstration will be part of the kick off. This event is particularly timely as September is “Save A Life Month” (in conjunction with National Preparedness Month).

More than 1,500 fourth- and fifth-grade students in the elementary district will participate in one-hour Save A Life For Kids training during school year 2006-07. The training is designed to teach students how they can help when faced with a real life emergency by providing them with the skills they need to care for the injured or ill until emergency medical services arrives. Members of the Santa Barbara Fire Department will serve as instructors. The program will be the first of its kind in the city and the state, and school administrators hope to mirror the success of the Save A Life Foundation (SALF) program in the Chicago public schools.

This pilot will involve teaching Santa Barbara school children age-appropriate basic life supporting first aid skills including CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, while also helping to raise awareness for the need for everyone to learn life saving skills.

SALF is a national non-profit headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It is a national affiliate of the Department of Homeland Security through the Citizen Corps program. SALF is funded through state departments of public health, federal agencies and private donations with the goal of training the masses in basic life supporting first aid skills (starting with the children). SALF provides this program for free to public school children and, since 1995, has trained nearly one million children.

To learn more about “Save A Life Month” and the Save A Life Foundation, log onto www.salf.org.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Sela Viscarra Receives Delta Kappa Gamma’s Distinguished Career/Professional Service Award

Delta Kappa Gamma Society International promotes professional and personal growth of women educators and excellence in education. Recently, Sela Viscarra,a 27-year kindergarten teacher at Adams Elementary School, received Delta Kappa Gamma’s “Distinguished Career/Professional Service” award for her creative, exemplary teaching techniques integrating reading and music.

Integrating Open Court with techniques with Orff-Schulwerk music techniques, Ms. Viscarra uses songs, pictures, and objects to teach beginning sounds, rhyming words, and vocabulary to her students. There are eight units that must be covered in kindergarten and she uses songs with movement accompaniments for each unit. Her teaching reflects her personal philosophy: “Life is a song!”

Ms. Viscarra is committed to engaging Hispanic and other English language acquisition parents into their children’s educational experience in the following ways:

• She spearheaded ELAC at Adams Elementary and developed programs that engage these families in student learning strategies.
• She established a homework center for families and created a plan that incorporates collaboration between school and community through on-site meetings, parenting seminars, and sessions in English language development for adults and children.
• She has worked diligently to instill confidence in parents, encouraging them to become active in the classrooms, parent/teacher events, and as volunteers on campus.

Ms. Viscarra assists Hispanic parents in their role as partners in their child’s education by writing directions in Spanish on daily worksheets, translating information during parent/teacher meetings, and serving as translator for school communications to parents.