United Methodist vocational teacher forges stronger students
12/5/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.
NOTE: Photographs and a television report are available with this story.
By Nancye Willis*
Jack
Towns teaches at-risk teens how to weld scrap metal into works of art
at Catoosa Crossroads Academy in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. A UMNS photo by
Lyle Jackson. Photo number 03-504, Accompanies UMNS #583, 12/4/03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
Students
learn to weld scrap metal into works of art at Catoosa Crossroads
Academy in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. A UMNS photo by Lyle Jackson. Photo
number 03-505, Accompanies UMNS #583, 12/4/03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. (UMNS)- Jack Towns, a member
of Graysville (Ga.) United Methodist Church, uses fire and metal to mold
the self-esteem of teenagers who might otherwise have little.
The
sixth- through 12th-graders in his welding and blacksmithing classes at
Catoosa Crossroads Academy have been told they cannot return to public
school because they have been disruptive or have not attended regularly.
"They
think they're worthless, but they're recyclable," Towns says of his
students. That perception might also apply to the scrap metal the
students use to craft whimsical sculptures-long-legged birds, basset
hounds and some creatures not easy to identify. The students call their
sculptures "yard critters."
Like the discarded bicycles, lawn
mowers, and lawn and garden tools with which they work, most of Towns'
students "have been given up on by society," he says. "They're cast over
to the side of the road. Unless somebody stops and nurtures them back
to health, they're probably not going to make it."
He sees his
role as restoring hope to lives deemed hopeless. "They need somebody
that believes in them -- that trusts them. And I think they need
somebody that has a trust in Christ."
Katherine Arledge, 15, is
one of Town's success stories. Despite a high IQ, she failed sixth grade
at a public school in Ringgold.
"I was making Ds and Fs at my other school," Katherine says. "When I came here, I started making As and Bs.
"My
attitude started changing toward school," she says. "When I came here,
everybody had a positive attitude toward life. They tried to show me how
to make (my life) positive by caring and working with me one on one."
Towns,
who has taught third-, fourth- and fifth-grade Sunday school classes at
the Graysville church for more than 25 years, says that experience led
him into education. "Working in Sunday school let me know that that's
what I wanted to do - to become a full-time teacher," he says.
After
several years coordinating public-school vocational academic education,
Towns joined the staff of Crossroads in 1994 at the school's inception.
He says he had prayed at his church's altar: "'Here I am, Lord, send
me.' This is where he sent me."
"I'm in tune with God's will and
what he has in store for me as a United Methodist," he says of the
decision to leave traditional education.
What God had in store
held some surprises for Towns. "I couldn't weld when I first got here,"
he says. "I went to welding school for three years."
It was worth
it, he says. Along with the yard art, the program is "creating artists.
We're creating people that feel good about themselves."
They're
also learning the value of their skills, selling their art through a
local art association and gallery. "They can be entrepreneurs. They can
take junk and make art and sell it and make money," Towns says. "And
they can be proud of what they do."
The yard art sales raise
about $2,500 a year for the Catoosa County Children's Fund. Some of the
money also is used to buy supplies for the classes, and the students get
to keep a portion.
Changing minds, changing grades, changing
attitudes - overall, "it is a calling," Towns says. "Without Christ in
my life, I wouldn't volunteer for this job."
He adds, "All I see
is possibilities. I expect only the best. I look only for the best. And
that's what I want out of them. It's like a preacher looking for that
'Amen.' I know it's out there, and I'm going to get it out of them one
way or the other."
"Who knows what great artists are going to
come from these young people?" Towns says. "What they might do is far,
far greater than anything that I've ever imagined before. But God can
use us, and he is using us all."
More information on the Catoosa
Crossroads Academy is available from the school's Web site,
http://www.catoosa.k12.ga.us/cca. Information on the availability of
"yard critters" for purchase is available at the Dalton Creative Arts
Guild's Web site
http://www.creativeartsguild.org/mt-newhome/archive/000028.php.
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*Willis is a staff member of United Methodist Communications.