“It’s a little outside the box,” admits Anna Jardine, “but they are young enough that they don’t know what the box is yet, so it’s been really cool.”
Jardine, the junior high band teacher for the Flin Flon School Division, is referring to her students and their work with Australian composer
Jodie Blackshaw.
Using video messaging, the students worked with Blackshaw to learn her 2014 piece “Belah Sun Woman.”
“We send her a video of us playing and then she sends a video of…her giving us feedback and what she is intending for her piece,” says Jardine. “So, she’ll say, ‘Why not try this?’ and we’ll do that and send it back to her.”
When Jardine first encountered Blackshaw, her students were already working on “Belah Sun Woman.”
A second presentation, last December, gave Jardine the opportunity to ask Blackshaw if there was a way for her to collaborate with Jardine’s students. Blackshaw was presenting at the Midwest Clinic, a band and orchestra conference, held in Chicago.
The two worked together with Jardine’s class using video messaging and incorporating advice from Blackshaw.
Blackshaw typically guest conducts around Australia, and Flin Flon’s online instruction was a first for her.
Jardine has been able to work on different techniques with her students, including the texture of the music – which is hearing how all of the different instruments and pieces fit together – as well as the shape of the music and creating flow.
Jardine, who has been a band teacher in Flin Flon for the past five years, has noticed a difference in her students.
“I think the kids that have done it are going to come out with a better understanding of larger musical concepts that you can’t get into in those younger years,” she says.
“Usually that stuff is at a higher level thinking and you can’t address it until they have a higher level of skill. They are going to have a better understanding going forward and to be able to apply that to other things they do.”
Flourished
Thanks to initiatives such as the online collaboration, music programs across the Flin Flon School Division have flourished in recent years.
Band and choir programs have doubled in size at the junior high level while interest among high school students continues to grow.
As students move on from Jardine’s band program to the high school level, teacher Kim Jones says she has noticed a positive difference.
“The quality of the students has improved,” says Jones. “I’ve always enjoyed teaching and I’ve enjoyed the students right from the beginning, but their quality and repertoire is improving. That quality that we get [coming] through every year is just more and more.”
While her high school numbers have not doubled like Jardine’s have, Jones says the interest of the students continues to get stronger at Hapnot Collegiate.
Attitude shift
Jardine says over the past five years she’s seen a shift in attitude, for the better, with students in the programs.
Jardine and Jones have high hopes for their programs and their students.
“I would just like to see the kids grow and be successful,” says Jardine.
With numbers continuing to grow, Jardine hopes to see more junior high students stick with music once they enter high school.
“Retaining them is getting harder,” she says. “Hapnot is getting smaller and there are lots of options, so it’s getting harder. But, I just want to see them grow and be successful and enjoy what they are doing.”
Jones says the reward of teaching music is like no other.
“Often this job can feel crazy, but…there aren’t many other teachers [that] have to showcase what they teach,” says Jones. “We do concerts at the end of semesters. We put what we do out there for the public and that can be stressful.
“As crazy as it can be, nobody else gets to feel the way we feel at the end of a concert. When your kids have done a really good job, you feel so proud of [what] they have achieved.”
Starting out
For Flin Flon students, music education starts at the elementary level with teacher Lara Smith.
All students participate in elementary school music classes with the opportunity to join band and choir as extracurricular activities starting in Grade 6 and carrying through to Grade 12.
Students from Ruth Betts Community School, École McIsaac School and Creighton Community School make up the junior high programs.
Fifteen years into the job, Smith still relishes coming to work.
“It’s the love for all of it,” Smith says. “Some days I think, ‘I’m getting paid for this?’”
Jardine agrees. “I know, it’s so much fun.”
“I just can’t see any greener grass,” adds Smith. “I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
Smith says herself, Jardine and Jones have worked effectively together.
“I think we’ve brought [the music program] so far,” says Smith. “I feel like it’s a solid, working machine that is producing so much. We’ve fine tuned it so well.”
Musical this week
École McIsaac School and Ruth Betts Community School’s grades 4 and 5 students will put on a spring musical this week to showcase what they’ve learned this year.
Music teacher Lara Smith says the concert gives the older elementary grades the same opportunity as the Christmas concert does for the younger grades.
Each class will perform with various instruments, including an African-inspired set from the Grade 5 students and a choir performance.
The musical will be split into two nights with McIsaac students performing tomorrow night and Ruth Betts students taking the stage on Wednesday. Both performances will begin at 7 pm.
The junior high band program has outgrown a school gymnasium and will this year be held at the RH Channing Auditorium.
Students from Ruth Betts and McIsaac will partner for an evening of music and artwork on display.
