Almost every school day for the past ten years, Yates High School photography teacher Ray Carrington III and his students have walked through the Third Ward, an old, historically African-American area near downtown Houston. The students learn how to see this neighborhood with new eyes, to focus attention on the people and places that define their neighborhood, and to create images that document the life of this community.
In 1995, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston partnered with Jack Yates High School’s Magnet School of Communications and with Ray Carrington to present an exhibition of the students’ work at the museum. This collaboration also provided new opportunities for students to learn about the museum from curators, educators, designers, and public relations staff. Today the partnership between the museum and the photography programs at the Yates Magnet School of Communications ranks as one of the museum's most admired and successful educational initiatives.
The Eye on Third Ward exhibition of photographs by Yates students is now an annual event at the MFAH, eagerly anticipated by students, teachers, parents, and the public. In 1995, students said they did not come to the museum because it was boring.
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