Preconceptions

The Buffalo High School Arts Magnet Program. This kind of fancy title gives you high expectations. It gives the image of a highly distinguished program, filled with interesting, intelligent students bursting with creative energy. It sounds like it could be an expensive private school but it's actually within a regular high school.

The Mission of the Arts Magnet program is Academic Excellence through Artistic Inquiry. The program integrates the arts within core classes as a learning tool. Different people learn in different ways, these kids learn by relating the arts to what they do.

The Arts Magnet website says "The curriculum is based on the belief that the arts teach essential skills for the 21st century." 

I wanted to observe this "culture" because I go to the same school as all the Arts students do, but I know almost nothing about how their classes work. I think the arts infused classes are a really cool idea and I want to see how they work. I am curious to see how they can relate the arts to science. Science and art exist in two different worlds for me, art is more free and science is very factual. I am excited to see how that works.

Another reason I think this group is so interesting is because of how it relates to Quest. Both of these programs are for people that learn in a different way. All the Quest students are mostly separated from everyone else, this forced us to become really close to one another. The arts students are also separated from others, I wonder if they are as close as we are.

The Arts Magnet program is free to anyone that wants to join (as far as I know).  I think it would be interesting to see how groups form within the class. Do groups of friends join the program together or are new friendships made through these classes? In Quest, if your friends don't make it in you are forced to make new friends there. Would someone join arts magnet alone if they knew their friends weren't joining? I may not be able to answer this through observation but it's still a question I have.

I expect this class will be less distinguished than the name sounds. Because these are arts classes I think there will be more learning by doing, so more chaos than a regular classroom. These people are also probably creative thinkers, with lots of ideas, so lots of noise. I expect most of these people to be more toward the outgoing side.

I am excited to see the way that Arts Magnet classes differ from traditional classes and how the students learn in a different way.

I Am From

I am from the wood burning stove,
from sunscreen and ponytails.
I am from sunny yellow paint
and splintered dock boards.
I am from algae
the monkey tree
whose lightning struck limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I'm from green milk and blonde hair,
from Michael Allen and Patti Jo.
I'm from leaf piles and Mickey waffles
and from candlelight.

I'm from Czy nie ma zadnych uszy? and No whining at the beach!
and you are my sunshine.
I'm from streamer canopies.
I'm from Ceder Rapids and Lake Charlotte,
hot dish and strawberry jam.
From Silver Bridge,
and one red rose.
Pictures of the past,
In dusty frames along on the wall.

I am from memories.