John Adams Music Teacher Selected to Attend Cultural Workshop

Wes McCune, music teacher at John Adams Elementary School, is one of 40 teachers selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities to attend a cultural workshop for teachers June 25-29. This program, "Reframing U.S. History at Peralta Hacienda," will be held at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park and the University of California at Berkeley.

Using information obtained through the workshop, McCune will develop an arts-integrated teaching unit to use with his classes during the next school year. John Adams is a partner school with the Changing Education through the Arts (CETA) program with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The workshop will give teachers the opportunity to examine the connections between United States history and that of Mexico through Luis Peralta, a soldier and colonist, and his family. The Peraltas were among the original Californios, descendants of Spanish-speaking settlers who arrived with the Anza expedition to the San Francisco Bay area in 1776. Topics under examination include encounters between Spanish colonists and Native Americans, independence from Spain, the Mexican-American war, repercussions of the Mexican revolution, and the bracero program, a 20th-century work program that brought temporary laborers from Mexico to the United States.

For more information, contact McCune at 703-824-6970.