Tallahassee Democrat - 09/27/2017 Page : C01

Copyright © 2017 Tallahassee Democrat. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights , updated March2007. 09/27/2017September 27, 2017 9:08 am (GMT +4:00) Powered by TECNAVIA

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T here’s a madness sweepingthrough Tallahassee and itseems no one is immune. It’sinfecting our parks, publicspaces, businesses and even

schools. Most recently, the contagiontook hold at Woodville School and stu-dents, faculty, and staff have all suc-cumbed to the outbreak. The agentresponsible for the mania… paintedrocks.

The Tallahassee Rocks movementbegan less than a year ago and hasreached craze status. The family-friendly activity of painting rocks withcolorful imagery and words of encour-agement provides a low-commitment

creative outlet which contributes to itspopularity. There’s also a hide-and-seek component that offers a sense ofadventure and serendipity as artists letgo of their creations to be found laterby others. The trend sparked an ideafor Elizabeth Rudd.

As the Assistant Principal of Wood-ville, Rudd works to create a culturewhere everyone on campus is valuedand encouraged to contribute. Shepredicted that rock painting wouldmagnify the current camaraderie with-in the school and she enlisted Wood-ville’s art teacher, Sally Ash, to spear-head the effort.

“Sally always does a beautiful job,”said Rudd “and I knew that she could

During Woodville'sopen house event,proud students tookpictures of theirrocks to share withfamily and friends

AMANDA THOMPSON

SCHOOL OF

ROCKSWoodville’s new garden celebrates

individuality and community

AMANDA KARIOTH THOMPSON COUNCIL ON CULTURE & ARTS

See Rocks, Page 3C

LOCAL NEWS » TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT » WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Adolescents & Geriatrics

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Movies

FLYING INTO TROUBLE: During the late ‘70sand early ‘80s, freelance pilot Barry Seal (TomCruise) graduates from smuggling Cubancigars to working for the CIA and then theMedellín Cartel in “American Made,” basedon a true story. It’s rated R and opens Friday atthe AMC 20.

PLAYING WITH DEATH: Medical students(including Ellen Page) push the edge when

they begin stopping their hearts for shortintervals to glimpse into the afterlife but theexperiments have deadly paranormal after-shocks in the remake of the creepy movie“Flatliners.” It’s rated PG-13 and opens Fridayat AMC 20.

TENNIS, ANYONE?: The hype sends the pressinto a feeding frenzy in 1973 when tennis prosBillie Jean King (Emma Stone) and BobbyRiggs (Steve Carell) pit male chauvinismagainst feminism on the court in “Battle ofthe Sexes.” It’s rated PG-13 and tentativelyopens Friday at AMC 20. Brittyn Dion Bonham, left, and Patrick Montgomery get into a heated debate about a hate

crime in “The Laramie Project,” opening Thursday at Tallahassee Community College’s Fred W.Turner Auditorium. MELINA MYERS/SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT

LIMELIGHT EXTRA

TCC’S ‘LARAMIE PROJECT’EXPLORES HORRIBLE CRIME Get a jump on your weekend entertainment plans every

Wednesday, and pick up the Limelight section on Friday

CD DAVIDSON-HIERS AND MARK HINSON

DEMOCRAT WRITER AND SENIOR WRITER

See Limelight, Page 2C

Tallahassee Democrat - 09/27/2017 Page : C03

Copyright © 2017 Tallahassee Democrat. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights , updated March2007. 09/27/2017September 27, 2017 9:09 am (GMT +4:00) Powered by TECNAVIA

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TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT » WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 » 3C

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1-866-200-9215PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

S C H O O L & FA M I LY

Happy First Birthday

Kamryn Elyse Klappas, Sept. 16, 2016. Daughter of Pete andAmber Klappas.

First BirthdaysSend in a JPEG format photo to TLH-FirstBirthdays@tallahas-see.com. Include the child’s full name, date of birth and par-ents’ names, address and phone number. Photos are publishedWednesdays on or after the child’s first birthday. Photos arepublished within one month of the birthday. Call 599-2171.

As school systems seem to becontinuously narrowing theirfocus down to college prepcourses I would like to once againmake a pitch for the importanceof the arts in schools. This time Imean industrial arts.

There are probably a dozengood reasons for industrial arts tobe covered in a school curriculumincluding boys and girls of allages, and many of the reasons aremore important than seen at afirst glance. The first reasoninvolves the very purpose of aschool – to expose and educatechildren in many different fields,the more exposure the better.

This dovetails into the fact thatthere are seven different types ofintelligence and the modernschool only focuses on and re-wards two or three at best. Indus-trial arts, for those too young toremember, basically means mak-ing things with your hands, andlearning how to use a variety oftools, including power tools, thatare extensions of your hands.

There are many children inschool who are kinesthetic learn-ers, and industrial arts plays totheir strength, opening up wholenew success paths for them be-sides sitting at a desk all day.Come to think of it, all children

would benefit from not having tosit at a desk all day.

The planning of a project andthen executing it takes a lot ofreading, writing and math. Theseskills are absorbed much quickerby children when they are an-chored in doing something realinstead of in a sometimes sterileclassroom. There is nothing likefocusing the mind when there is apurpose, like not destroying asix-hour project because you gotthe measurements wrong, asopposed to learning fractionstoday just because an adult saidso.

And if children see the purposebehind the reading, writing andmath, it really helps the teacherback in the classroom to teachthese subjects. All of a sudden theclassroom is not nearly so sterile.

Another positive asset of in-dustrial arts is confidence build-ing, which spills over into otherparts of a child’s education andlife. Learning to use tools proper-ly under guided supervision isempowering to not only boys butin an important way, girls too. Thebreaking of stereotypes andlearning new skills is truly liber-ating and the ability to do goodwork with one’s hands and be ableto make or repair things is a giftthat keeps on giving way intoadulthood.

The inner confidence thatcomes to a child who is able toenvision, plan, create and buildsomething is invaluable and actsas a propellant that fuels theirmarch from childhood into a posi-tive adulthood.

The importance of schoolsproviding the opportunities af-forded to children through indus-trial arts is understood if onethinks about all of the childrenwho may never get these experi-ences if left to their own devices.If a school doesn’t provide theseexperiences and guided educa-tion, who will?

Many parents don’t have theexperience or even the money, toprovide what a trained andstocked school can supply andwould be absolutely thrilled tohave their child come home excit-ed about what they did in schoolthat day. The school would beproviding a service to not onlyparents, but society in general byproducing not just educated, butwell-rounded students.

The icing on the cake is thatwhen a good industrial arts pro-gram is up and running well, thestudents and teachers can pro-duce products that are sold to thepublic, thus helping the programsustain itself while involving thefamilies and community in a showof support at the same time.There was a time a while backwhen Gadsden Technical Institutemade, plumbed, and wired theportables for the school system.

The benefits of an industrialarts program of some kind at allage levels is valuable in multipleways.

Bill Hoatson has been an edu-cator in the Big Bend area for 30years. Reach him at billhoat-son@yahoo.com, or visit childa-chievement.com.

Bring back industrial arts class

Bill HoatsonGUEST COLUMNIST

take this and run with it.” Rudd’s goalwas to “recognize individuality. All therocks are different just like we’re dif-ferent. Yet, when you put them all to-gether, they make a collective whole.”

Ash introduced the project at thebeginning of the year and tied it to theschool’s character program based onthe book “Jackie’s Nine” by SharonRobinson. The book identifies courage,determination, teamwork, persistence,integrity, citizenship, justice, commit-ment, and excellence as the values thatbaseball great Jackie Robinson livedby.

“Most of these are things we alreadyteach every single day in art,” ex-plained Ash. “For instance, excellencedoesn’t mean you’re the most talented,it means you focus and you try. Persis-tence is another. In art, you rarely get itthe way you want it the first time. Youkeep fixing and re-doing or do it a dif-ferent way. Courage to create is a bigone. So many people are scared thattheir ideas aren’t good enough but Iencourage students to share them-selves.”

Through Woodville’s painted rockproject, students did just that and therewas another beneficial side-effect. Itallowed Ash to get to know some of thenewcomers. When asked what kind ofimagery she’d like to include on herrock, one newly enrolled student sur-prised Ash.

“She said ‘I want to do a Nirvanarock.’ I was like ‘Nirvana? You’re cool. Ilistened to that 20 years ago and I’mgoing to put it on as the music today.’ Sowe listened to instrumental Nirvanawhile they painted rocks. How do youthink that made her feel? Welcome, Ihope. You gave me an idea and we’regoing to include you in this communityright away. We’ve had a good relation-ship ever since that first day.”

Inspired by '90s grunge bands, StarWars, or sports, the painted rocks re-flect the personalities and unique in-terests of each and every student,teacher, and staff member at Woodville.That equates to more than 600 rocks.They are artfully displayed in a ded-icated location near the front office andwere officially unveiled at the school’s

open house event where parents andstudents could enjoy them.

Seventh-grader Daniel Best createdan abstract design on his rock using redand dark blue paint because “those aremy kind of colors.” He enjoyed thisproject and all the assignments in artclass because “it makes my mindstretch. I have a lot of fun and it makesme feel better as I do it.”

John Reed is an eighth-grader andhe especially liked working with newmaterials. “We used something calledpaint pens. They’re like regular pensbut they have paint inside instead of inkand the paint doesn’t wash off.”

Of the nine character traits the stu-dents are exploring, John said he identi-fies most with determination as evi-denced by his rock painting experience.“I was going to paint an aircraft carrierbut I messed up on the planes and I hadto improvise. I kind of messed up on thesubmarines too and so I made them intolittle fishes instead.”

Fifth-grader Taylor Smith painted amermaid on her rock and when askedwhich of the nine qualities she identi-fies with she said “I’m really good atteamwork. I can brainstorm ideas in agroup without arguing at all. Being partof a team is a lot more fun than workingby yourself.” This project was perfect-ly suited for Taylor because “we do alot of teamwork in art and I love topaint.”

Reflecting on the outcomes of theproject, Ash feels she’s accomplishedthe original goal and she shared anillustrative anecdote. “I was gettingthings ready for open house, sweepingup and straighten the rocks a little bit.Within the first three minutes, a para-professional and a Pre-K teacher cameup with brooms of their own and anextra dustpan and just jumped right in.I didn’t request help, that just hap-pened. It shows how this project hasreally established more of a sense ofcommunity than we ever hoped for.”

Amanda Karioth Thompson is theAssistant Director for the Council onCulture & Arts. COCA is the capitalarea’s umbrella agency for arts andculture (www.tallahasseearts.org).

RocksContinued from Page 1C

Sally Ash points out John Reed's rock which he showed determination in creating.AMANDA THOMPSON