We are at a very critical crossroads.  Now even some of the most secure members of the eroding middle class are feeling what the folks at poverty level have had to live.  So what is discussed in their homes will affect your students’ mindset.

I dream of my own children learning in a small class of 10 or less.  I dream that we can lead our students to discover that becoming a more caring human is appreciated more than a human that has acquired every material possession known to mankind and is still unsatisfied with life. I dream that no child ever feels invisible in his or her classroom.

I dream that extraordinary children with Tourette’s Syndrome, autism, and other children who are perceived as different, will be given a voice to teach us about their perceptions so that we can learn how to become sensitive to others and smile while we thank them for enriching our lives.  I dream that “disability” will change to “this ability”, and that “these abled”  persons will teach us how to become better care givers and less selfish in our own personal lives.

American students must learn other languages or suffer the consequences of being left out of the global mix.  Hunger breeds creativity and a yearning to improve your lot in life. I am impressed with India’s development.  China is very hungry to establish its role as a world leader.

I see us collaborating with other countries so that we might understand how a human in any part of the world can find happiness without all the consumer trappings.

The internet allows us to do this like never before.  Of course being an art educator, I would hope to see art from the world’s youth to start making socially relevant art to stimulate new dialogue.

I see a nation of teachers who are free to facilitate students’ interactions from different cultures in remote parts of the world relative to the U.S. so that we can stop the fear mentality.

I see music patterns piercing our soul which will awaken new ideas.

I see us learning from drug producing countries because, quite frankly, my cousins in Mexico hate drugs and their effect on the world’s youth.  I wonder how they make drugs look boring?

I dream about children producing poetry that just shocks the world into listening to their hopes and fears so that we can man up as warriors for justice.  The new weapons will be their unshakable positive ideas, not guns.  Great artists like Gordon Parks taught us this years ago.

I see the popular media promoting teaching as the most important activity that will fill young minds with hope.

I dream of schools that incorporate the need for disaster relief workers and health care workers that can respond to world disasters so that Americans will be known as the most caring nation in the world.

I dream of food on the table for every American and the means to earn the right to raise a family in peace.

Let us continue to be life long learners and read about how the leading countries have made breakthroughs.

Let us solve some problems at home so that we can be the world’s example of a diverse nation that enjoys freedom to learn and serve.

There are probably some students in a teacher education program wondering where they might want to exercise their right as an American to serve and improve our country just like my wife and I were thinking in 1983 at Eastern Michigan University when we were in the bilingual ed. training program.

I say choose the poorest population you can find.  You will find few resources, but you will find stars that shine like diamonds in the sky in the eyes of children who can gauge your sincerity.  All children in our nation deserve the best, but personally I was compelled to teach children that looked like me.  Their eyes seek hope.

My wife and I were told that Adrian and Detroit had the largest bilingual ed. populations.  I grew up in Adrian, so I convinced her to chose Detroit.  We gained employment with Detroit Public Schools.  Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead said it best, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”  Actually, we were the ones that were blessed enough to have met some of the greatest students that climbed Maslow’s hierarchy of learning.

Detroit ranked as one of the poorest urban districts in the nation.  It has always been known to be a hard gritty city that weeds out the weak spirited.  The city has a reputation of having resilient citizens.  Was it rough there.  Of course.  Was it worth it?  Let me tell you about who we met, and where we were privileged to teach.

One of my first students that showed artistic promise was Isaac Moreno who grew up on Chene & E. Kirby.  It was close to Heidelberg St. where world famous Tyree Guyton created art from discarded rubbish on a street that some individuals used as a dump.  Isaac Moreno became my mentee after I met his hard working parents.  They were from Monterrey, Mexico.  We at Earhart noticed that he showed some promise in art.  Isaac started winning art contests, and Ms. Linda Rankin, the counselor at the time, recommended that I deliver a portfolio of his work to Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

He developed under Cass Tech’s strong learning environment, and we would continue to meet at the Detroit Institute of Arts because Hudsons had sponsored Drawing in the Galleries every first and third Friday of the month.  He started drawing a crowd of onlookers.  I would be off in the corner observing his magnetic attraction.  Professional artists were in awe of his skills, and they would encourage him to go to the best art schools in the country, NYC schools.  He chose the School of Visual Arts.

His former girlfriend, Nia Mora, was a photography student.  They got turned onto photography because Gordon Parks held a workshop in Detroit.  Yes, the real Gordon Parks.  Once a student comes in contact with great humans like the late Mr. Parks, something wakes up in a student’s mind.  And it’s good.  Using art to promote social justice is where it’s at.  His retrospective at the DIA was all they needed to have another role model in their repertoire of positive role models.

Isaac is now teaching graphics in Mexico.  Nia graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and is now organizing young women photographers in NYC.  If her name sounds familiar, it’s because her twin sister Naima Mora became one of America’s Next Top Models on the Tyra Banks Show.

I met Jonathan Meyer in middle school.  He was an only child, and was living with his mother in Southwest Detroit when she enrolled him at Earhart.  I remember the drawing lesson I gave where he drew large clear light bulbs.  He drew the reflections and captured the subtle values and made them shine without electricity.  I like producing winners not only in art, but in life.  By this, I mean students who achieve self actualization.  They realize the reason they were given passage for being born into our universe.

Jonathan and Issac were regulars at the Drawing in the Galleries.  Jonathan got educated at Western International High School in Southwest Detroit.  I remember getting permission to take him to Siena Heights University to meet a few people in the art dept.  Ms. Rising suggested that I take him to an admissions counselor and a financial aide counselor. That is where I discovered that he hadn’t filled out his FAFSA forms at Western International High School.  He almost slipped through the cracks.  He thought Adrian was a little too quiet for his taste, and I had to respect that.  Something popped into my head as we were leaving Adrian.  I asked him where his father was born and when.  He said that by strange coincidence that his father was born on Oct. 22, 1957 in Adrian.

I sort of freaked out because that is my birth date.  I said his grandmother was in the same hospital as my late mother when we were both born on that day!  Jonathan chose the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.  It is where world class auto designers received their instruction.  Industrial designers and fine artists all will tell you of the top quality instruction at CCS.  Jonathan was just awarded first place as a professional artist in metal arts in the prestigious Ann Arbor Art Fair.

Omar Paulk was yet another mega artist who has experienced some failure in his life.  I thought he was the office aide until I learned that he liked to fight if anyone ever talked about his mother.  You just don’t do that in the ‘hood unless you are ready to verbally battle the offender.  The older generation of African Americans call it “Playin’ the dozens”.  I remember in one of his battles a classmate said, “Oh, Omar I’m sorry your so poor your socks don’t match.” , thinking she inflicted some verbal pain, but Omar responded with, “Oh don’t feel bad _______, I heard that the doctor dropped you on your head when you were born, you can’t help but to be stupid.”  The class roared with laughter.

Back when he was in sixth grade, I recruited him for my Gifted & Talented after school class.  He told me that he probably didn’t qualify since he wasn’t doing so well academically.  I told him I made the rules for my after school program, and I just needed to see interest in art, and that it was my responsibility to shape and guide his artistic development.

Omar soaked up every lesson like a roll of Bounty.  I remember him starting up a drawing from the cover of a Scholastic Art magazine with Albrecht Durer’s self portrait.  The gifted and talented session had ended, and I was washing some brushes at the sink when he asked me the most profound question any middle school student had ever asked me.  He asked, “Mr. Perez, do you think Jesus Christ was Black?”

I dried my hands and wondered how I was going to respond to this deep question.  I said that most of the drawings that can be seen in books were drawn by Europeans and that I couldn’t recall any drawings that were drawn of him during his life time.  As I approached his drawing to see his progress, I gasped as I saw the reflection in the eyes that he had drawn.  He did it with a ball point pen.  It had the tears in his eyes.  At that point in time, I told him that he was a visual genius.

He looked and thought that I had him confused with an honors student.  I told him that the educational system can’t fully measure a student.  Tests can’t measure “ganas” or desire.  They can’t measure hope.  They can’t measure imagination.  They can’t measure how high you will rise as a human.  So it will take education a while to catch up with you and other creative minds.

That is when the Ford Motor Company and the Detroit News began a state wide art contest, the Ford Hispanic Heritage Art and Essay Contest.  Enjoy the photos of the award ceremonies over the years. Omar began an artisic dynasty.  I forgot to tell you that Ford’s first place award was a $5,000 savings bond.  After Omar won, all the students started asking how they could get in on the action.

Omar left eight grade with over $11,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds and a commitment to graduate from high school.  He wants to become an art teacher.  He works as a security guard saving money to go to school.

Nora, Dalia, and Elizabeth were some young girls that had equal success.  I will have to write more about them.

My wrists are getting a little sore from my arthritis, but I wish to tell you about the fine humans that I met before I got to Earhart.  I was at Dr. Ben Carson’s former middle school before I transferred for an art position.

It all seems like a dream to me now.  I am going to get another slice of starfruit to remind me of my former students.  Tell me about your wonderful students so that anyone hesitant about teaching at risk students can see if they have what it takes to serve America’s poor.

Now you can see why I framed it that way in my young mind. I loved the Wizard of Oz. It caused me to wonder about the other side of the rainbow.  I used to look up at the stars and wonder what the universe was all about when I was young.

Sunnyside was literally across the railroad tracks which was the border of Adrian and Madison Township. I would walk the railroad tracks because the older fellas in Sunnyside could find these metal straps that were perforated which we bent into whistles.  While walking on the tracks, I would notice this cool building about a half mile from Sunnyside that was in reality Siena Heights College.  It looked bright and shiny in the distance like Oz. It is now Siena Heights University.  I met the educational wizards there when I got older.

My mentor, master artist, Martin Moreno of Cuervo Studios in Phoenix, AZ graduated from Siena.  Look him up.  He’s the real deal!  Yes, he is very human, but his mentoring has spanned the country.  He always chooses to serve the poor.  Growing up in poverty makes us try harder.  When we have few material possessions, we tend to focus on our dignity, and we hone our God given skills.  Martin mentored me by taking me to my first art competition with the Chicago Indian Artist Guild at Truman College.  He introduced me to Julian Harr and Alex Garza, two heavyweight Chicago artists.  I got to meet other real artists.

I got a third place student award which validated me as an artist in a national competition.  My little sister, Marilyn, still has it in Ann Arbor.  She earned her degree in Chicago, but she and my brother in law settled in Ann Arbor because she originally worked in the finance dept. for the U of M.  Marilyn and my brother, Ben, also attended Siena’s Upward Bound Program.

A wonderful educator, Karen Glaser, was the director of Upward Bound at the time.  She assembled a crew of counselors and inspirational teachers.  What a program!  I am evidence that it works.  So are a whole bunch more in Adrian.  I was a bridge student and met Sister Basil Sheridan.  Rhetoric 101.  I still remember her passion when we were introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King’s letters from jail.  That is an impeccable piece of rhetoric.

Martin also introduced me to Ken Thompson, owner of Flatlander’s Sculpture Supply in Blissfield, MI., another Siena graduate.  Just look at how he enhances communities with his monumental sculpture.  Get on his list if you need inspirational public art.

Martin introduced me to his friend Tom Rudd, another sculptor and Siena graduate.  His resume would knock out an elephant.  We would go to his studio and I would observe and absorb the sound of the rock chipping away while they would help the rock reveal its inner form much like a master teacher can chip away the rough edges of our students.  When the work is finished, clean up was in order.  I used to imagine that they were all sculpting my soul to become a teacher someday.  It worked my mentors!

They used to talk about Father Van Horn, the sculpting professor.  This guy was a legend and could make you time travel in his art history lessons.  He made me proud when we were studying about the Olmec indians of Mexico where civilization began in the Americas.

My favorite professor was my life drawing professor, Sister Barbara Cervenka.  She was gentle soul that found a way to inspire her students.  It was in her class where I viewed the Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and good ole Leonardo da Vinci.  The Catholic sisters had really traveled there and came back with views that didn’t appear in art books.

Sister Celeste Bourke was the ceramics teacher in 1976.  Her work appeared in a book about Raku.  I forgot the author, but it impressed me.  I was being taught by someone who was published.  That impressed this young student.

Now that I live in Kauai, I realize that Siena produced another legend, Joan Lee Husted, who just retired from her role as president of Hawaii’s teacher’s union.  Her accomplishments are beyond the scope of my blog.  It would take volumes of testimony from teachers to give the public a realistic portrait of her.  She is known for her countless reforms for teachers and students.  I wonder if she ever ate the fine Mexican food in Adrian?

I met another student there who changed my life.  I met my wife in Studio Archangelus at Siena.  I was an Upward Bound student there, so we both were blessed enough to get a few lessons from some incredible professors.

So I would love if you contacted any of the above mentioned persons and share your stories and memories of the educators at any level that inspired you.  Thank them because none of us entered the field to get financially rich; we have to live with our humanitarian efforts and the smiles we get to see when a new concept is understood and relished by our students.

In the state of our nation’s financial crisis, I now understand that we can lose all our pennies, but no one can ever take away our education.  Sunnyside prepared me well for this.

Siena was my first post high school educational institution.  Thank you Siena.  Thank you mentors.

We say MAHALO here, and may your life and all around you recieve some of Hawaii’s ALOHA spirit.

I cried at the way some children couldn’t understand the nature of Tourette’s, and I was in artistic ecstasy when I heard the way the young student played piano.

We have much to learn about our limited knowledge of how the mind works.  Specials like this inspire me to encourage my own children to make any attempt to show acceptance for these extraordinary children.

Each child in the HBO special was a natural born teacher.  They schooled this fifty year old veteran middle school teacher that I have much more to learn.

They led me to think why can’t we create a nation of teachers who can serve small classes so that every American child can get the personal attention that he or she deserves.  It could be rooted in the idea that we exist to improve the quality of life for every American.  Then we can export goodness by example.

What if wars were solved with arts competitions?  What if we became the nation that solved social problems world wide?  What would happen if American students started perceiving drug abuse as boring because they have found a more fulfilling activity like public service?  We can do it because we are Americans!

My first choice for a super teacher would be any one of the extraordinary children on that HBO special.  Take your time growing up little stars.  You have a big responsibility for your country, but your debut was tearjerking.  So you young ones made an old seasoned Detroit teacher cry, with hope.

We are on break this week, so  I wanted to see the waves in Kapa’a yesterday.  I had a sandwich and an orange that my wife picked up off the road because it fell off our neighbor’s tree and had rolled to the side of the road.  We have the habit of picking up trash on our path as we walk to the bus stop.  Someone put a garbage bag by the bus stop to keep it clean.  I pass by this curvy road where I see this egret perched on the back of a brown horse in the meadow with Black Mountain in the background.

More people are taking the bus.  There was standing room only yesterday, and I met Ashley who was returning to school to pursue engineering after many years in the restaurant business.  I told her that two of my sons and my nephew work at a restaurant in Poipu, Kauai.  She urged me to tell them to get into school.  I got off at Kauai Community College to get some more information.  A simple conversation sparked action.

I met a young Chinese exchange student wearing a McDonald’s Sack T shirt.  She was on the way to work.  I told her that I usually go there for my morning cup of coffee between transfers in Lihue.  She spoke excellent English, grammatically better than most Americans.  I asked her if she had any brothers or sisters, but she said no because the Chinese government has a one child policy.  We then talked about religion.  That is when she told me that the majority in China really don’t believe in God.  It sort of blew my mind, but I wanted to understand.  I asked her if anything bad ever happened there and how do they establish values.  She told me the govt. outlawed religion when the Communists took power.

I told her that we were from inner city Detroit, and that city has a way of making you seek a higher power.  I gave her my website since she wanted to become a teacher.  We both got off, and I got some Kona coffee.  I know it’s a drug and bad for me, but I am reminded of George Carlin’s routine, It’s BAD for you.  It was still tasty.

I arrived in Kapa’a sort of hungry while I was walking to the beach to find a palm tree when I saw this Rastafari looking white young man descending a palm tree just after he had knocked a few coconuts down.  I said good work, and he responded with, “Yours is right there.”  He then showed me how to crack it open on a lava rock.   The coconut water was so cold.  I pulled out my sandwich and he thought it was a bag full of.  I said, “No brother, I don’t do drugs.  I figured you might want to share a sandwich.”  He wanted a joint, so we parted ways.  I thanked him for the coconut.

After a nap listening to the calming waves, I went to the ball park where the bus makes transfers.  An elderly German woman walked towards me and sat down under the pavilion and sparked up a conversation with me.  She had escaped Germany before the war and came to the U.S.  I asked her how she chose the U.S., and she said she followed God.  I told her about Omar’s drawing of Albrecht Durer, a German artist and one of my favorites.  I told her how a German artist’s work inspired a young African American in Detroit City to become an excellent artist and high school graduate.  Her bus came, and we wished blessings on each other.  I forgot to ask for her name.

My bus came, and I suddenly noticed the contrast of the day.  What contrast.  I did get the Chinese lady’s first name, Eve.  Both were very interesting conversations.

Go green and meet cool people.  Then share your stories.  I know know why I bought the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.

Michigan is a perfect state to view when we look for a symbol of American creative thinking.  I lived a few blocks away from Bagley St.  58 Bagley St. is where Henry Ford built his first car.  He must have gotten tired of riding in a horse and buggy, so his creative imagination led him to see a new America. The late great Henry Ford thought creatively.  He envisioned affordable vehicles that the average person could afford, so he invented the auto assembly line.  They moved the house to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village where the world can see the actual house.  Another creative thinker visited his friend, Henry, and went on to make an entire magical world after his visit.  Maybe you have been to Disneyland or Disneyworld.  Who in the world doesn’t know that artist’s creation, Mickey Mouse?

We created generations of worker bees, but the Japanese learned our culture and studied some fine art along the way because even we bought a Honda.  They capitalized on aesthetic styling and craftsmanship to topple the big three in Detroit.  Many of my friends and relatives no longer are employed by the auto industry.

There will always be some humans that diminish the importance of the arts.  I am reading Irving Stone’s, The Agony and the Ecstasy, a novel about a great Renaissance artist.   Just think how world history and culture would have taken a turn if Michelangelo’s father had been the secretary of education in Italy.  His own father didn’t want Michelangelo to pursue a career as a stone sculptor since they were a family of bankers.  No David, no Sistine Chapel, no Pieta.

Let’s take Sir Ken’s advice and pump creative blood into the American educational system, as it needs a serious transfusion.  Let us envision a nation that thinks more creatively so that we can develop new ideas about what education can be that will manifest a new generation of Henry Fords and Walt Disneys.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” — Albert Einstein

Art is so special because it reveals the extraordinary vision that young humans have.  It teaches the stale adult mind that new possibilities are infinite in the mind if we are given an opportunity to exercise this part of the mind.

Art is the vitamin that energizes our nation’s next inventors, entrepreneurs, and scientists.  Without the arts, we tend to rehash what has already been done.

NCLB tends to lead Americans to think of the arts as a frill that can be sacrificed so that more time can be spent on the basics.  America will get just that, a very basic thinking population that can read, write, and do some calculations.  So can India, China, and Japan, but they take it to a new height by infusing some cultural aesthetics into the mix when they create.

I love how the Olympics showcased a calligrapher and reported how he used a variation of a character to design the new logo.  They used performing artists to dazzle the world in the opening ceremony.

I came from a city that eventually fell as a world power in the automotive industry.  Why?  The Japanese study fine art as part of the auto design curriculum.  I bought the book at THE auto design school in Detroit.  It is bilingual and has pictures of Japanese students with sculptures of fine art.  Their cars looks fast and stylish just sitting there.