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The Grenada Middle School has developed an innovative new
teaching strategy using the arts-an idea to use the walls of a building facility
to teach the student. As a result of this concept, a partnership between business, artists, school district parent groups, and the Mississippi
Arts Commission has created the "Walls That Teach" learning environment . "Walls that Teach" has produced a teaching
work of art that describes world events and takes the students on a journey
combining art, technology, and history.
The project communicates the idea that the school is a "time machine"
equipped with a graphic time line, swirling graphics, and a number countdown
inlaid in the floor tiles. This project serves as an interactive teaching tool
that has been the basis of county-wide teacher inservice and a motivation technique
for student creative writing activities, historical studies, and research.
After traveling past the timeline that extends form 6,000 B.C. to the present,
the "time machine" takes the students to the first stop-the fifties!
Students are surrounded with a mural, painted by artist Ginger Wolfe, depicting
a myriad of famous personalities from this era, all of them portrayed in the
environment of the local Grenada Lake.
The next hallway, Egypt, features a nine-foot sculptural sarcophagus, map, and
murals depicting life in Egypt. The artist, Robin Whitfield, stated, "The
Egyptian section contains design elements, hieroglyphics, and murals depicting
the major styles of Egyptian art. The walls of the halls are used, as well
as the floor tiles, to provide a total learning environment for the middle school
students."
China is featured in the next hall, showing dragons, warriors, and visual explorations
into Chinese science, architecture, math, philosophy, and art. Engaging math
puzzles, swirling dragon images, and Chinese painting techniques are integral
parts of the journey through China. Asian tile designs are embedded in the floor
down the hallway, uniting the entire environment.
An outdoor environment has been created to simulate a Choctaw
Indian ecosystem in a wetlands area. A flowing, bubbling stream with native
plants, frogs, and fish has been created to depict a Mississippi Choctaw homestead.
The homestead contains an authentic cypress log cabin chinked with clay, straw
and wood ashes with cedar shingles for the roof.
The "Walls" project has received three grants from the Mississippi
Arts Commission, a BellSouth Regional Grant and Teacher Grant, Wal-Mart grants,
and honored with a grant from the National Geographic Society
Education Foundation. The "Walls" project received an Award for Excellence
from the Public Education Forum of Mississippi, recognized at Mississippi History
Day with the 1998 Mississippi Junior Historical Society Community Service Award,
and was a featured exhibit at the 1998 and 2001 National School Board Convention
in San Francisco. The "Walls that Teach" project won two awards at
BellSouth's Learning Alive Teachers Conference in Atlanta (Best Overall Showcase
Grant and Most Unusual Classroom Project)and was also
honored as the recipient of the 2005 School District
Program Award by the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education.
This
ambitious endeavor was made possible by a collaboration between many
groups:
-The Mississippi Arts Commission provided funds to pay artists for the
Fifties Cafeteria, the China Hall, the Timeline Hall, and the Roman
Hall.
-The National Geographic Society Educational Foundation provided a grant
to produce an outdoor wetlands environment depicting a Choctaw Indian Homestead.
-Artist Robin Whitfield has created, over a five-year period, the impressive
hallway designs and graphics. Robin sculpted the Egyptian sarcophagus,
designed, researched, and painted the timeline and time machine,
created the content-filled Egypt, China, and Roman halls and the Choctaw Homestead and ecosystem. Robin's attention to artistic
detail and historical accuracy are evident in every square inch of the
Grenada Middle School spaces.
-The Grenada County Extension Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
and the U.S. National Resources Conservation Service combined resources
to build the flowing, wetlands stream in the Choctaw Indian Homestead
area.
-Binswanger Mirror Company contributed mirrors and glass for the graphics.
-Phillips Building Supply provided the paint for the timeline hallway
graphics.
-Parents for Public Schools helped to paint the hall graphics and sponsored
a fund-raising event, "Egypt Day".
-P.T.O. Organization of Grenada Middle School provided partial funds for the Egyptian murals and provided refreshments
for the Fifties Open House. (Guests to the Open House were invited to
dress in fifties garb and participate in hula hoop contests!)
-Local artist Ginger Wolfe painted the mural depicting the 1950's in
the cafeteria.
-Grenada School District provided the funds and labor to produce the
inlaid tile floors, frame and install mirrors and timelines, install
new ceilings on each hallway and to lay concrete for the riverbed in
the Homestead area.
-BellSouth Pioneers provided fiber optic cabling for a computer demonstration
during the Open House.
-Wal-Mart provided partial funding for the development of the Egyptian
hall and has donated funds to expand the Choctaw
Homestead and Mississippi Ecosystem.
-Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians provided resources,
research, and craftsmen to develop the Choctaw Homestead
-Grenada Middle School art students helped to paint the hallway graphics
in the Timeline Hallway, the Egyptian Hallway, and the China Hallway.
Students also brought sandstone rocks for the outdoor environment's
wetlands stream.
-Assistant teachers of Grenada Elementary donated time to paint murals
for the Roman Hallway.
Recorded audio is available from Grenada Middle School Library to offer a walking tour of the Walls project. To listen to the audio tour, click here.
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