What’s Right With Our Schools: Barger Academy of Fine Arts
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – Creativity is an essential part of the curriculum at Barger. Talented students can pursue their passions in dance, drama, music and visual mediums.
Juana Wilson-Roberts is the Fine Arts Facilitator at Barger.
She says, “Welcome to the Barger School of Fine Arts. Well, Barger is the only Fine Arts Elementary School in Hamilton County. We offer all the Fine Arts here. We offer dance, we offer drama, we offer music, and we offer Visual Arts.”
She continues, “We are creative. That’s the key word, creativity, and creativity is what we express here, and the kids can show that without being shy or without being inhibited by that. They just learn all the things, and they love it, and the kids don’t even realize that they’re learning the Arts.”
Felicion McMillon is the Dance Teacher at Barger.
She explains, “Dance is movement. It’s a communication that we all can do. When I’m teaching a lesson, if they’ve never ever ever ever spoken that word before, they’re able to do that movement, and their their peers are like, ‘How did you know that? How did you get them to do that?’ Because dance is universal.”
Wilson-Roberts adds, “We have a lot of support in our community. A lot of Community Partners that partner with us and do great things for us here at Barger.”
Music Educator Michael Mitchell chips in, “If it wasn’t for gifts like this from the community, they wouldn’t be able to necessarily experience a baby grand. I mean, I don’t have one in in my classroom ,you know, so, it is a great place to work, a great place to raise kids. I’ve have all four of my kids go here. All my nieces and nephews went here, and it is a great place to be creative, to collaborate with one another and to just build community.”
Wilson-Roberts concludes, “I Would like to say not only do our students learn here, we have a fantastic staff here. The Pointer Sisters say, “We are family.’ We are definitely family here at Barger. We take the opportunity to just love each other, support each other, do the best that we can, and it’s kind of like, you don’t have to ask. We anticipate, and we initiate, and we do.”
