VENTURA : Parents Help Teach School Mini-Courses

At 1 p.m when they ordinarily would have practiced reading or math, the 300 children at Lincoln Elementary School scattered to publish a newspaper, do-si-do, make fish prints and kick karate-style.

On the first afternoon of the Ventura school’s semiannual mini-courses Friday, students participated in 24 classes taught for an hour by parents, area business leaders and the school’s teachers.

“I want my kid to know that I care,” said parent Ginger Fairfield of Ventura, helping students craft leather necklaces.

Organizers intend for the program, in its third year, to benefit parents and teachers, as well as the students, said Principal Jeffrey C. Nelsen.

“It allows our teachers to share an area of talent,” Nelsen said. “It brings in our parents in a really constructive, positive way. And it gives the students a choice to try a new experience we can’t offer in the regular curriculum.”

The mini-courses will be held each Friday for three weeks this fall and again for a month in the spring.

Classes ranged from T-shirt art to sailing to caring for houseplants.

“I like Indian stuff,” said 7-year-old David Blanchard, learning to make the musical instruments of the Chumash. “It looks neat and you can make music with it.”

In the jazz class, 10 girls rotated their shoulders and hips to pop music and the instructions of Laura Lee, a dancer and parent of two boys in the school. Out on the school’s playground, a black-belt karate instructor trained in a Japanese form of the martial art, led students through a series of punches and kicks.

“Everyone tells you to be quiet,” said Tom Scott of Oxnard, asking his students to shout as they threw punches. “I’m telling you, you can be noisy.”

Some teachers said they enjoyed the courses because it gave them an opportunity to interact with a smaller group of children.

Jessie MacLeod usually teaches two grades of 31 students, but Friday she had only seven to instruct in totem pole art.

“I was able to get to every child. I played classical music,” she said. “It was very mellow.”