Reader's View: Their Own Sistine Chapel
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Editor's note: Communities spring up around schools, and often within.
I'm looking down at the feet of 24 second-graders. They're sticking out from under a table, with paint splatters dotting the landscape. This is what I call hands-on learning.
As a parent volunteer in a school with no funding for an art teacher, I've just taught these students how Michelangelo spent more than four years painting over his head to create the masterpiece that is the Sistine Chapel.
Now it's their turn. Donned in smocks and goggles and armed with paints and brushes, they're creating their own masterpieces on a piece of manila paper taped to the underside of a table. Their own private ceiling. Their teacher and other parents are nearby to cheer them on, mop up spills and suggest what might happen if they mix red with yellow. At the end of the hour, images emerge -- the Eiffel Tower, a giant robot, a pumpkin, a mountain goat.
At Tulip Grove Elementary School in Bowie, there isn't just one art teacher, there are dozens -- and they all work for free. They're parents who believe that even though art might not be tested on the state exam, it's still a subject well worth learning.
-- Jean Van Ryzin
parent volunteer
Tulip Grove Elementary School
