Yes, exactly. I had the same kind of school, a middle school where 98% of
the students were either black or Hispanic. The only white/Asian kids were
bussed from across town for the AG program so they could say they actually
HAD some white kids...but I digress.

Working in that kind of school is definitely a challenge. I was the art
teacher, and my kids were old enough to begin stretching their wings into
something more than just basic projects. Plus, to keep ME interested, I
wanted to do projects that _I_ was interested in. Those were the projects
the kids liked best. Sewing, makign snowflakes, crayon batik, linocuts. We
had a grant and an artist came and dyed fabric with the kids and we made
quilts. It was outstanding! The quilter had had breast cancer and chemo,
and her hair was about 1/3 of an inch long all over. One day she got too
hot (menopause on top of chemo!) and so as to not scare anybody, she called
the kids' attention and just told 'em, "I'm going to pull off this hot wig."
and she did, and out of two combined classes (30+ kids for this project),
only one of 'em said a word about it. O dang, I digressed again. Anyway, I
do understand what you meant about having big projects like that, where the
kids feel they can take some ownership, be the most fun of all. They
definitely are.

L

"Pati Cook" wrote

Some of the few good parts of that job were those luncheons.

Pati, in Phx