Teachers Earn Kudos for Blending in Arts

“Wasn’t this a beautiful day?” producer-director Garry Marshall asked the several hundred teachers, school principals, education administrators and others who had just finished a pasta buffet in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s Grand Hall. “There were no quakes, no riots, no fires. It’s a great day in Los Angeles.”

It was also a pretty good day for Los Angeles-area teachers, 69 of whom were recognized Tuesday as nominees for the 12th annual BRAVO Awards.

Created by the Music Center Education Division, the awards recognize teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade for innovation and creativity in integrating the arts into their classroom instruction. Marshall, whose mother taught dance for 50 years, was the ceremony’s celebrity presenter for the 11th consecutive year.

After a welcome from Music Center President Shelton G. Stanfill, the nominees, who were chosen by principals or faculty committees, were cited by Music Center Education Division co-chairman and program emcee Sidney A. Thompson, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Stuart E. Gothold, superintendent of L.A. County Office of Education. (The third co-chair, Caroline Ahmanson, had been called away on business, missing the ceremony for the first time.) Video clips captured the 11 finalists at work--teaching art to a second-grade bilingual Chinese/English class, supervising a jazz-band practice, incorporating drama into history.

The two winners were Darnelle Hayes Davidson of Manhattan Beach, in the arts specialist category, and Dilip Saxena of Riverside, in the general classroom category. His wife, Debi, was also a nominee.

Davidson has taught music and dance at Los Angeles High School for seven years. Her students have won the Los Angeles Unified School District band and drill-team city championship for the last four years.

“It feels wonderful to be recognized by so many people and share the experience with so many who really care about the arts and preserving them in the schools,” Davidson said after the ceremony. “The arts allow us to relax, be creative and let our emotions out.

“There are so many negative things happening in our world--our students need to have something very positive, to believe they can make a difference. Once they can start believing in themselves the sky’s the limit.”

Saxena, 34, also a seven-year teaching veteran, uses video, painting, music and drama in his sixth-grade classes at Washington Elementary School in Norco, using the arts to teach reading, written and oral language, math, science and social science.

“Children learn in different ways,” he said. “Students who can’t write things down can express things in other ways.

“I found art is a very secure medium for students to convey what they want to me. Once they do, they feel good about themselves. Maybe no one has ever told them before ‘I like it.’ Once you recognize the positive, say in dance, then they try their hardest in other areas.”