NORTHRIDGE : Teacher Tagging at CSUN Seminar

It was the first time Genoveva Rendon had ever tagged, and when she raised the can of glossy black spray paint to the white surface in front of her, she had a hard time deciding what to write.

“I’d never even used spray paint,” the 29-year-old Limerick Avenue Elementary School teacher said. “To me, graffiti was always something you shouldn’t do.”

For a group of teachers who gathered as students at the CSUN campus during the past two weeks, tagging was not a nuisance, but a required assignment.

About 50 teachers came from all over Southern California to take classes in visual arts, music, drama and dance as part of the California Arts Project’s only Open Institute this summer.

The Arts Project holds seminars for teachers every summer at eight sites throughout the state, but many of them are by invitation only.

To get a diverse group of teachers, coordinators of the program selected applicants from a variety of disciplines, geographic areas and grade levels.

The two-week, $300 program was paid for by the teachers’ schools or districts.

Glenda Gentry, the executive director of the California Arts Project, said the purpose of the program is to give teachers a deeper understanding of the subjects they teach, apprise them of new instructional methods, and encourage them to see the connection between all disciplines.

All of the courses were designed to be applicable to grade levels from kindergarten through college.

The tagging project was part of the visual arts course, which touched on the history of art in society.

Barbara Kerwin, one of four instructors for the visual arts segment of the program, said that the role of graffiti is historically significant.

“Man marks his territory,” she said. “Caveman marked his walls, too.”

As part of the course, teachers also made sculptures out of trash from a local dump, crafted a shelter out of garbage bags and made collages with personal mementos.

Yuki Yoshino, 38, a teacher at George Washington Elementary School in Burbank, said the program helped her see the connection between different disciplines.

“It’s teachers teaching teachers,” she said. “You’re learning from them and they’re learning from you.”