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06/13/06
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
It used to be called Vocational Education. What's changed besides the name?
Isabel Vasquez>> African American and Latinos still have a little bit of a problem in the sense that there's a feeling that students of color were attracted to what we call Vocational Ed and not allowed to pursue college careers.
Val Zavala>> And then, he's traveled the world, but never gone far from home. Meet southern California's own Armenian dance maestro.
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> Remember those days in high school when certain kids were relegated to woodshop? Well, Vocational Education was phased out in the 1970s and 1980s, but now we're suffering the consequences, serious future shortages of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, even air traffic controllers. So is it time to return to vocational training? As Toni Guinyard tells us, it could be a case of back to the future.
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Toni Guinyard>> These photographs tell a story about people who once lived and learned in the city of Los Angeles, photos of adult education students in class. Over the years, the program has evolved --
Philip Struyk>> "There's probably a servicing port someplace."
Toni Guinyard>> -- to reflect the technical demands of California's job market and it's not called Vocational Education anymore.
Isabel Vasquez>> It's called Career Technical Education to include all those new fields that didn't exist a hundred fifty years ago when adult education began.
Toni Guinyard>> Isabel Vasquez is the Outreach Coordinator of Adult and Career Education for the Los Angeles Unified School District. We met her at the North Valley Regional Occupational Center Aviation Center.
Isabel Vasquez>> In aviation, every time an airplane leaves LAX, somebody has to fuel it, somebody has to make sure that it's operating. Those are jobs that can't be outsourced. We need them here and we have to develop a workforce that's able to respond to that.
Toni Guinyard>> Students in Career Tech programs represent the changing face of adult education.
Chris Zapata>> I don't want to go to college. I'm not a hundred percent "A" student. I don't like sitting in class and taking notes, so my idea was to do something I love and that was mechanics.
Robyn Crockett>> I was a very good student, straight A's, and I was at Glendale Community College. I studied dance, culinary arts, some general courses. I have a hard time concentrating in a classroom setting. I like to be out doing something, working with my hands. I want to be an aircraft mechanic either for a commercial airline or a private company.
Toni Guinyard>> Adult Ed was once seen as nothing more than an alternative for students who simply couldn't cut it in college, but not anymore.
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Christian Umo>> My current goal is to be a corporate pilot. My life goal is to be a career test pilot.
Toni Guinyard>> Christian Umo and Jennifer Norvel --
Jennifer Norvel>> I'm really interested in engines.
Toni Guinyard>> -- are students in North Valley's Aviation Maintenance and Repair classes. Jennifer had first enrolled in college.
Jennifer Norvel>> I tried it and I didn't stay. I kind of got bored with it.
Toni Guinyard>> And then?
Jennifer Norvel>> I came here.
Toni Guinyard>> Christian enrolled here one week after graduating from high school. He eats, sleeps and breathes about anything and everything to do with aviation.
Christian Umo>> My passion is what I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I couldn't imagine being a doctor. You want to be a lawyer? No, I don't want to be a lawyer. Why? It's what I want to do. It's what's inside. You know, it's my passion. That's the only word I can use to explain it. It's passion.
Toni Guinyard>> Christian plans to go to college later. Jennifer hopes to one day go back to college too. They defy the image of the Adult Ed student who learns a trade simply because they can't succeed in school.
Isabel Vasquez>> I know that there's some baggage associated with what we used to call Vocational Ed. Especially for people of color, African American and Latino, still have a little bit of a problem in the sense that there's a feeling that students of color were attracted to what we call Vocational Ed and not allowed to pursue college careers.
Toni Guinyard>> Now Adult Education is seen as a program that complements college.
Dr. Laurel Adler>> You don't have to have an either/or. You don't have to. That's different.
Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Laurel Adler is Superintendent of the East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Program and Technical Center.
Dr. Laurel Adler>> It used to be that students that were focused, that counselors would see this as strictly for kids who were not going on to college. Now we get students who are premed, who want to be doctors, who want to be lawyers, who want to be engineers, and this is their first step of getting a true idea of what it's like in the field.
Toni Guinyard>> The East San Gabriel Valley Program has redefined the term of hands-on experience. We visited on the day emergency medical students tested their skills during a simulation drill.
Scott Snedeker>> This particular type of scenario that we set up today was auto versus pedestrian, hit and run. So they have to come in and they'll do their patient assessment.
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Scott Snedeker>> They'll do all the critical intervention.
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Scott Snedeker>> Treat the patient, get him loaded up and get him to the hospital. When we do these simulations, I mean we teach it very slow in class, but when we do the real world experiences, it's got to be fast-paced and quick like it would be in the real world.
Toni Guinyard>> We watched the drill with Aaron Roman, a former EMT student who is now a paramedic.
Aaron Roman>> As I was looking, I was kind of, you know, going down my list of checkpoints, so to speak. They pretty much hit every one. I was impressed, actually.
Toni Guinyard>> The overall Adult Education program here caught the attention of the James Irvine Foundation. The Foundation named East Valley one of six model programs for its newly-formed California Center for College and Career. Connect-ED, as it's called, hopes to blend academics with technical and career training at the high school level.
Dr. Laurel Adler>> In these pathways, whether it's a medical like we've been seeing today or it's child development or any other arenas that they have an opportunity to understand why they need to learn some of these academics so that they're learning the academic skills and the career skills together.
Toni Guinyard>> The Irvine Foundation committed six million dollars to develop the Connect-ED program. That pledge came shortly after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger earmarked fifty million dollars in the state budget to expand career test programs in middle and high schools and community colleges.
Isabel Vasquez>> It's a good thing that more people, both the private sector and the public officials, are talking about reinvesting in career technical education.
Toni Guinyard>> Why do you think that's happening now?
Isabel Vasquez>> Because there's a shortage in some career technical education fields.
Dr. Laurel Adler>> For a lot of these kids, if you just engage them in something that challenges them on a real-life basis, you can get that connection back and then the rest of their day lights up. They'll say now I understand why I'm taking that math class. Now I understand why I need to write.
Toni Guinyard>> Just take Jennifer, for example, the aviation student who said she didn't fit in college. Talk about engines and her demeanor changes.
Jennifer Norvel>> The power of it, basically, and the physics, the chemistry and how all the components are working together with each other. It's similar almost to a human body in a certain kind of way in the way all the systems come together and then produce, you know, into an aircraft that flies.
Toni Guinyard>> You love this, don't you?
Jennifer Norvel>> I do (laughter).
Toni Guinyard>> She, like so many others before her, decided adult education was a perfect fit.
Philip Struyk>> We're a country of second and third and fourth and fifth chances, so a person in their midlife can change their career by going to an adult school like this, and I think that's the beauty of adult education.
Toni Guinyard>> Adult Ed, one hundred fifty years old and counting, a stepping stone to a career or college. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.
Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> Dana Point is at a turning point. Should the beachside community follow the lead of its neighbor to the north, Laguna Beach, and redo its village to attract those upscale tourist dollars? Some say no, that that will mean the end of its down-home charm. Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, reports on the future of Dana Point.
Roger Cooper>> Some things about Dana Point never change. The waves that crash along its shore, the massive rock that is the point, the comings and goings of ships in its harbor. Richard Henry Dana would find much that is the same, the same as it was in the 1830s when he came here by ship, the same as when he wrote "Two Years Before the Mast" and described the point that would later bear his name.
But on several other fronts, change is coming to Dana Point all at once. On the headlands, in the harbor and downtown, three major revitalization projects are on the way. Lara Anderson is mayor of this community of thirty-five thousand which is trying to find its way into its future without losing its small seaport charm.
Lara Anderson>> It is actually kind of serendipitous how things all come together. The harbor is being done by the County of Orange, the headlands is a private development. You know, of course, Town Center, the city is trying to do that. So you really have three agencies all kind of coming together.
Roger Cooper>> Dana Point's beautiful harbor seen on countless picture postcards has an appointment for a one hundred twenty million dollar makeover.
George Caravalho>> Well, it was built in the late 1960s and 1970 and it's just tired in some areas and needs a facelift.
Roger Cooper>> George Caravalho, the Director of Dana Point Harbor, which is owned and run by Orange County.
George Caravalho>> And so we intend to kind of refurbish it and build some new buildings and tear down some old buildings so that it's refreshed.
Roger Cooper>> The original proposals for the harbor were larger, but citizens spoke out at meetings saying they didn't want it overdeveloped or turned into Marina del Rey. The plans were scaled back.
George Caravalho>> The community made some comments, very good comments, about how they wanted to see the place developed. For example, they didn't want this island that we're standing on to be commercialized.
Roger Cooper>> There's a precedent here for proceeding with caution. When Dana Point Harbor was built in the 1970s, it took out one of California's premier surfing spots, something surfers are still sore about.
George Caravalho>> They used to call it Killer Dana. I've met people that live here still talk about, "Gee, I remember before the harbor was here what it was like."
Roger Cooper>> Once harbor plans get local government and Coastal Commission approval, work will start next year. There will be improved launch ramps and storage buildings for boats. Now scattered restaurants and shops will be concentrated in a commercial core that will include a two-story parking structure and a Festival Plaza.
George Caravalho>> The boat docks are old and they need to be upgraded. For example, the marina itself, many of the boats now are a hundred percent wider than they used to be, so you need to have a wider lane for them to park the boats, as an example. A lot of the rocks that were placed as bulkheads have deteriorated and we need to put new ones in place.
Roger Cooper>> Some of this makeover will be complete in five to seven years, but the full project will extend over twenty years. Dana Point's second major project will create a Town Center that will be able to compete with nearby Laguna Beach and luxury resorts.
Lara Anderson>> We have a little bit of a problem because we have major resorts here. We have five-star hotels and, when the guests at the hotels ask the concierge, "Well, what should I do? What's there to do here?" "Oh, well, go to Laguna Beach." (Laughter) You know, we like to think we're just as pretty as Laguna Beach and we certainly have some great restaurants and stores as well and we'd like them to send their people here.
Roger Cooper>> Dana Point has hired the same group who designed the Promenade in Santa Monica. They want to be sure the Town Center is pedestrian-friendly, but there's a bump in the road.
Lara Anderson>> Because Caltrans decided to make Pacific Coast Highway, you know, three lanes in each direction right through the middle of our town, which isn't exactly conducive to having a nice small pedestrian kind of town feel. So it's really been a challenge not only to slow down the traffic, because when people hit our Town Center, it opens up and it's like a speedway.
Roger Cooper>> But last year, the city got control of its main thoroughfare from Caltrans.
Lara Anderson>> So it is now a city of Dana Point road and, hopefully, we can do what we want with it (laughter).
Roger Cooper>> You have to climb to the top of the headlands to see Dana Point's third major project in progress. For twenty-five years, residents fought over the future of this premier spot. Should this land overlooking the Pacific be developed or preserved? In the end, the compromise. A little of each is going on. Earthmovers are now clearing the way for about a hundred eighteen ocean-view home sites above Strand Beach.
Edward Stanton of the Center for Natural Lands Management is overseeing the restoration of almost seventy acres of natural habitat, some for endangered species like the Gnatcatcher and Pacific Pocket Mouse.
Edward Stanton>> What happened was the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation had a long-term commitment to conserving the headlands itself. Harry and Grace Steele were very prominent yacht members around the area and they really liked seeing the open space from the ocean view as well as from up top. So the Foundation actually contributed the funds for the Center's acquisition of this land.
Roger Cooper>> Public trails and an interpretive nature center will be built, and a first for Orange County: a funicular A tram car something like Los Angeles's Angels Flight will carry people from the headlands down to the beach and back.
Which brings us to the Hollywood sign. What, you ask, does the Hollywood sign have to do with Dana Point Harbor? Sidney Woodruff, the developer who gave us Hollywoodland, had also planned to develop Dana Point, plans that included a lighthouse. But the Depression hit and the lighthouse was never built. Now some eighty years later, John Gile of the Dana Point Lighthouse Society wants to build the long-lost lighthouse right here.
John Gile>> Lighthouses in themselves are very majestic buildings or towers and they provide a viewpoint of strength and security and they provide a warm welcome to people that come and a friendly goodbye when they leave.
Roger Cooper>> John Gile envisions a two-story lighthouse that will include a nautical museum and an operating beacon. Mayor Anderson believes all this revitalization comes not a minute too soon because South Orange County's population is exploding.
Lara Anderson>> Change is happening all around us and we feel that, if we don't make a plan, a plan will be made for us and it's in our best interest to manage a plan for growth because it's going to happen whether we like it or not.
George Caravalho>> We want to enhance the charm and make it a nice place for people to come and gather and walk and run and ride their bikes and picnic, all those kinds of things.
Roger Cooper>> In fact, the public trails and the headlands will be ready in seven to eight months.
Edward Stanton>> I think this is a great thing for the city of Dana Point, people of Dana Point and Orange County and California as a whole. This will now always be available for the public to see one of the most beautiful promontories looking out over the ocean in southern California. It will now be here forever in perpetuity.
Roger Cooper>> Would Richard Henry Dana approve of all this? At this point, it's moot, but it's probably safe to say that he would still enjoy the stunning view and people today can still enjoy what Richard Henry Dana saw. In Dana Point, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.
Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:
Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027
You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.
Val Zavala>> How do you keep a culture alive when people are spread around the globe? Well, that's the challenge facing the Armenian community after the Diaspora in the first half of the last century. But we found one man who's managing to do it and, as Vicki Curry tells us, Glendale and Armenian dance wouldn't be the same without him.
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Vicki Curry>> It's a Thursday night in Glendale. These people are stomping --
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Vicki Curry>> Clapping --
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Vicki Curry>> And spinning to keep their heritage alive. Yes, Armenian folk dance is alive and well, thanks in large part to this man, Tom Bozigian.
Tom Bozigian>> We have some original dances I've never seen anywhere in the world. Those kinds of dances really excite me.
Vicki Curry>> He spent twenty years teaching classes to anyone who wants to learn Armenian folk dance.
Tom Bozigian>> We have a style of dance that I haven't seen any match. It gives me more strength to want to preserve it and to pass it on.
Vicki Curry>> Tom Bozigian lives and breathes Armenian folk dance. His passion extends to learning and passing on traditional dances of the region.
Tom Bozigian>> I have a home in Armenia. I go to Armenia and research. I go to communities throughout the world. Wherever my teaching takes me, I always seek out Armenian communities.
Vicki Curry>> Bozigian was born in Los Angeles, but his Armenian-born father sparked his interest in his homeland at an early age.
Tom Bozigian>> It started with the family and my father's side was very, very strong dancers. My grandfather told me about his grandfather dancing dances and explaining dances to him. So really that was very, very exciting to me even while I was young.
Vicki Curry>> His family soon moved to Fresno, home to a large and lively Armenian community.
Tom Bozigian>> And they would have their dances, their picnics that sponsor affairs, and there I would go and see the dances and learn the dances as much as I could, and that's really how it started.
Vicki Curry>> As Bozigian's love of folk dance grew, he also started studying ballet. In 1972, he moved to Armenia to pursue a career.
Tom Bozigian>> I wanted to be the only Armenian born outside of Armenia who made the Armenian State Dance Ensemble.
Vicki Curry>> But instead of becoming a professional ballet dancer, Bozigian became even more interested in the dances he had learned as a child.
Tom Bozigian>> I went to Georgia, I went to Abaranjani, I went to all areas surrounding Armenia to study and get a full effect of Armenian folk dance, but there were some dances I learned that I never saw before, very interesting dances with unique styles.
Vicki Curry>> Bozigian's unique range of knowledge reaches beyond the traditional dances. He also teaches a more sophisticated version performed by professional dance companies.
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Tom Bozigian>> I'm happy that my training was first folk and then I went to classical ballet. We are going to take the dance from the village and we're going to clean it up. We want an upright body, we want a short line and they make some beautiful dances out of village dance.
Vicki Curry>> But he's also found that some folk dances aren't all that different from ballet.
Tom Bozigian>> Natural Armenian women's dance is very close to the classical because of the movement of the hands. The children are taught by their parents. Keep the arms long, keep the neck above the shoulder. We have a thing in this position of the hand where the middle finger and the thumb make a half circle and the other fingers higher. This is a side view of what we call the Yeghnig. Yeghnig is a type of deer. The turning, the flapping, the in and out are all the movements of that animal, the way it's running, it's hopping, and, over the centuries, the Armenian women have mimicked that.
Vicki Curry>> Many folk dances have similar stories.
Tom Bozigian>> The Dance of the Goat, the goat's movement in the upper areas of Armenia where we find a lot of shepherds. Over the centuries, a dance has evolved as a result of the way that goat runs.
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Tom Bozigian>> The way that goat runs, the shepherds have mimicked that over the centuries and a dance evolved.
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Vicki Curry>> Every year, Bozigian travels to two different areas in the region to research dance styles.
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Tom Bozigian>> Regional dance has different styles depending on many reasons, whether it's work, topography, ritual, religion. There were always some different styles. As we go north to the Georgian border where there's a lot of mountains, the mountains have created an upright, straight style, very strong and very sharp foot movement. The plains area of Armenia, especially Yerevan and to the west and all the way to the Turkish frontier, we have shorter steps, not big steps, because you have the room.
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Tom Bozigian>> It tells you something about the people from those days. Their dancing was very, very important to keep the original movements. We have good records. We kept good records, but we don't have all the dances.
Vicki Curry>> That's why Bozigian has devoted his life to conserving Armenian folk dance.
Tom Bozigian>> I go to the villages and I say, okay, I have this dance I know. I know you guys do it too. So I demonstrate the dance. Now how do you do it?
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Tom Bozigian>> Everything is videotaped. I learn the song. We write the song down and musicians also.
Vicki Curry>> He's determined to pass on the dances he's learned.
Tom Bozigian>> Over the period, I've collected about three hundred dances. Twenty-five percent I've kept and the others have gone, you know, to the grave, so we lost a lot of dances.
Vicki Curry>> Even though he's committed to saving the heritage of his ancestors, Tom Bozigian isn't living in the past.
Tom Bozigian>> Oh, I've seen dances evolve in my time. I've seen them dance where the music has sped up, the dancers are sharper, the steps are sharper, the dancers don't know the story behind it. Oh, I've seen it happen. We have some American Armenian dance, the phenomena in the 1950s, where Armenian kids created dances in dance contests, and those dances still remain. I made one up and everybody does it.
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Tom Bozigian>> Dances are passed on. They change. Dances are an expression of the day. They cannot express what they did two thousand years ago. Everything moves on.
Vicki Curry>> Bozigian's expertise is in demand all over the world by both Armenian and non-Armenian organizations, but it's also available on Thursday nights in Glendale.
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Val Zavala>> For more information on Bozigian and his dance classes, you can check out his website at bozigian.com. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.
Sponsored in part by:
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