While some New Jersey public schools sing praise about the history to being taught to students, a large chunk of what makes Trenton well-known has been amiss from classrooms. Local music continues to be overlooked and underutilized by the public school system\u2014 but not without reason.
\nDue to recent state mandated PARCC exams, music classes are being taken out of the spotlight in order to prepare their students for the upcoming exam. According to njspotlight.com, \u201cone in five N.J. schools doesn\u2019t offer both music and visual arts, as required by the state.\u201d
\nWithout music classes, it has become harder to integrate local musicians into regular classroom curriculum. However, there are still a few schools who hit a high note with the city of Trenton.<\/p>\n
Pierrepont and Union Middle Schools of Rutherford, N.J. are just two of many who take an annual field trip to Trenton, New Jersey with their wide eyed fourth grader students.
\n\u201cThe process involved the year of study that we did,\u201d said Margaret MacFadyen-Doty, a seventh grade teacher, previously fourth grade teacher, at Pierrepont School. \u201cWe covered the Revolutionary War and the battles fought in N.J. and their significance to the outcome of the war. This is where the visit to the Old Barracks came in!\u201d
\nThe Old Barracks museum, found in the heart of Trenton, offers children the experience of living during Revolutionary War times. The students of Pierrepont and Union school became immersed into old practices of some doctors, the process of shooting a gun, and the instruments some soldiers played during battles.
\n\u201cI still remember it!\u201d Said Emily Laskey, 18, a college student who experienced the trip to Trenton in fourth grade. \u201cWe saw all the colonial-looking people and I remember being so surprised and intrigued.\u201d
\nThis museum also offers a summer program solely focused on the music of that time period, but for a group of about one-hundred fourth graders, the brief introduction to the music was all they were allotted.
\n\u201cThey were really focusing on the hardships those people went through,\u201d said Laskey. \u201cMusic then and even now is for celebratory purposes, so maybe they didn\u2019t deem it important.\u201d
\nBack in the classroom, students began experiencing lesson plans that coincided with one another. While reading the \u201cRed Wheelbarrow\u201d by William Carlos Williams, students would create simplistic drawings based on the poem. While learning about the Great Depression in history class, students would read a book about the struggles farmers faced.
\nWhile learning about the Battle of Trenton, the musical focus for the students was instead placed on famous state musicians instead of Trenton\u2019s musicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sure that if there were some more famous musicians I’d have try to touch on it in some way,\u201d said Constance Defazio, the music teacher at Pierrepont School. \u201cI did a fourth grade sing-along some years ago. We sang \u2018High Hopes\u2019 by Sinatra, \u2018Who says you can’t go home?\u2019 by Bon Jovi, among others.\u201d
\nWhen asked about whether students should learn about Trenton musicians along with Trenton history, some were hesitant.
\n\u201cAt that age, I believe the exposure is what’s important,\u201d said Defazio. \u201cIt’s important to know about these musicians but it really depends on the kind of music they do and how appropriate that is for a specific grade. The Four Seasons came from Newark, but I don’t think fourth graders would enjoy that type and style of music.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Principal Joan Carrion reassures us that music is and always has been important to her and the school system.
\n\u201cThere is 100% a correlation between education and music,\u201d said Carrion. \u201cStudies have proven music is a huge factor in both social and mental development. Anecdotally, I have seen kids who are struggling in classes or struggling to make friends really connect with their peers through music.\u201d
\n\u201cBefore I was in choir, I really struggled to find a sense of community among people who really cared about each other and were passionate about something. After I joined middle school choir and transitioned into high school choir, I found a lifelong love for music that has shaped me into the person I am today.\u201d said Laskey, with a smile. \u201cMusic classes give us a way for us to create something beautiful as an entity, and to work together with harmonies to make beautiful euphonies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While some New Jersey public schools sing praise about the history to being taught to students, a large chunk of what makes Trenton well-known has been amiss from classrooms. Local music continues to be overlooked and underutilized by the public school system\u2014 but not without reason. Due to recent state mandated PARCC exams, music classes are being taken out of the spotlight in order to prepare their students for the upcoming exam. According to njspotlight.com, \u201cone in five N.J. schools doesn\u2019t offer both music and visual arts, as required by the state.\u201d Without music classes, it has become harder to integrate local musicians into regular classroom curriculum. However, there are still a few schools who hit a high note with the city of Trenton. Pierrepont and Union Middle Schools of Rutherford, N.J. are just two of many who take an annual field trip to Trenton, New Jersey with their wide eyed fourth grader students. \u201cThe process involved the year of study that we did,\u201d said Margaret MacFadyen-Doty, a seventh grade teacher, previously fourth grade teacher, at Pierrepont School. \u201cWe covered the Revolutionary War and the battles fought in N.J. and their significance to the outcome of the war. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2438,"featured_media":2548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2550,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions\/2550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pearson.immtcnj.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}