Mennonite Weekly Review

TUCSON, Ariz. — Mosaics and watercolor paintings line the brick walls of Myers-Ganoung Elementary School. Christa Janzen, a volunteer art teacher, pushes a heavy metal cart loaded with crayons, paints, construction paper, markers and other tools from classroom to classroom.

MVS worker Christa Janzen teaches art at Myers-Ganoung Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz. — Photo by Cara Rufenacht/MMN

When the cart enters, Janzen is greeted with clapping and cries of “Yay! Ms. Art!”

Without Mennonite Voluntary Service, art and music at Myers-Ganoung might have been headed for extinction.

Janzen, a volunteer from Sonnenberg Mennonite Church in Kidron, Ohio, spent the last year inspiring creativity in children at Myers-Ganoung. Her teaching also has inspired her to re-examine Christ’s lessons on peace and justice.

Several years ago, budget cuts and looming debt led school districts in Tucson to cut music and art programs, leaving teachers to pick up the pieces. At Myers-Ganoung, a diverse school for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, teachers were forced to build art and music into their busy daily schedules or drop the subjects altogether.

“Unfortunately the first things to go are always music and art, and it was up to us to teach the kids those things,” said Amy Martin, a first-grade teacher. “And kids really need time for these subjects. There are so many pressures now to test children and to achieve, but art gives them a chance to express themselves and relieves some of that pressure.”

For the last two years, MVS participants have served at Myers-Ganoung, helping to provide art and music education. Last year, Kimberly Troyer of Shore Mennonite Church in Shipshewana, Ind., served as a music teacher. This year, Janzen teaches art to children in all grades.

Janzen is responsible for planning age-appropriate lessons on her own. Because a large number of students at Myers-Ganoung speak Spanish, Janzen also took an eight-week refresher course to improve her ability to converse and give directions.

Her time at Myers-Ganoung has instilled a new passion for Jesus’ radical message of peace and service. Encounters with Somali children, whose families came to Tucson as refugees, and seeing the results of poverty in her classrooms impressed upon Janzen the importance of just policies and cultural sensitivity.

Through conversations with other teachers and her husband, Scott, who is volunteering with the Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services program in Tucson, Janzen learned more culturally-sensitive ways to work with refugee children.