2 minute read
Greenway Park Elementary School
By Kesh McGee Photos courtesy of Gregory Pope
Shortly before the global pandemic outbreak, the Greenway Park Elementary School’s PTA planned to integrate more visual art in and around the school’s campus. The idea was to create an arts project outside the school building that would reflect the visual arts, music, theater and dance that students were exploring inside the school. Then came COVID-19.
Like many schools around the country, Greenway Park, a creative arts and sciences magnet school, had to shift to sometimes teaching a minimal in-person student model and also to virtual learning during the 202021 school year. Elementary art teacher, Gregory Pope, decided to make this time count. He created a plan to work with his smaller classes of fifth graders to bring the
archways of the school building alive with painted murals.
Pope instructed small groups of students to try to transform an archway. He worked alongside each group to complete the project. “We did it together,” Pope said. At the end of the project, the students turned each archway into a colorful mural with bright bold colors. Each of the arches represented one of the four major disciplines taught at the school: visual arts, music (band and orchestra), theater and dance.
Pope previously taught art at Bruns Academy and also coached middle school basketball. He earned his Bachelor of
Gregory Pope teaches visual arts at Greenway Park Elementary School.
Science degree from Georgia Southern University. “I’ve been creating art since I was a kid,” he said. Although he didn’t have access to art classes in elementary school, he took college-level art classes in high school. “I really wanted to teach and also coach,” he said.
Pope eventually found a teaching home at Greenway Elementary in Charlotte. At Greenway Elementary, from as early as the third grade, students decide what they want to study and they make it their “major.” Once they decide on their area of focus, “it gives us more time to work with the students in that specific art genre,” Pope said. “Our main goal is to help them to grow in their craft and to prepare them for the next stage after elementary school. It’s really all preparation for what will be their next level. We want them to be ready for art in middle school or to get them ready to go on to Northwest School of the Arts — if that’s something that they want to do.”
“My goal is just to encourage creativity with the students,” Pope said. “I actually do art. I create art and design products. I actually live it. I'm teaching the students art and I do it with a passion. I’m showing them by example that if you love art, art is something that you can actually do.”
Pope said he has received positive feedback from the school community. “The murals, well that was a start,” he said. “I want to do other projects around the school next year. And having more students would help us to be able to do that. With more students we would certainly be able to continue to make this school look even more like a magnet school.” P
