School jazzes things up

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on November 16, 2007

When Amherst Regional High School students thought they might lose music teacher Brian Messier to budget cuts, last year, the didn't just hope it wouldn't happen, they mobilized.

They turned out at public meetings, collected signatures on petitions and wrote letters to the editors of local newspapers, saying he was one of the best teachers they ever had.

Happily, Messier was back again this year, teaching music at both the middle and high schools, and last Tuesday, parents and friends got to see the some of the fruits of his work when the ARHS Jazz Ensemble 1 and 2 performed at the Black Sheep Deli and Bakery.

Bob Saul, whose son Jack is a guitarist in Jazz Ensemble 1, was there. Losing Messier, Saul reflected later, would have been like "losing the spice in the education recipe."

"This is what these kids really enjoy and really live for. They're getting a full-blown education, not only in music and arts but in jazz, engaging in a discipline that they otherwise wouldn't get engaged in. They're educating themselves in a completely different way and it starts to show in their music," Saul said.

"The other cool thing about this whole jazz thing, is it's the perfect combination of individual and team. They have to have the rhythm section - the drums, base guitar and piano - locked down or else the solo instruments, the horns, just don't sound good. When you've got that firm backbone, all kinds of interesting things can happen. They've got that backbone this year like they've never had it before," Saul said. "The soloing is kind of icing on the cake, once you've got the cake, and they've got the cake built now."

<h4>Social justice learning</h4>

In the TV show, "The Simpsons," when teachers have a curriculum day, they go to an amusement park and whoop it up. But, in Amherst, the teachers get together, sometimes across schools, and talk about things like "unpacking mathematics," for example.

The task before them on Nov. 30 is a little different. They're going to talk about the school system's commitment to social justice, and figure out "how they will infuse it into their work," Superintendent Jere Hochman told the Amherst School Committee on Tuesday.

Hochman said the teachers will be talking about how to incorporate "intentional attention to social justice concepts" much more systematically than is done now.

An article they most likely will be hearing a lot about is "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," by Peggy McIntosh, an associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research for Women.

Now, "some kids may have read the article ... five times and some may not have read it at all," depending on the teachers they have had, Hochman said.

The knapsack McIntosh refers to in the highly touted 1988 essay is what she calls "an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day" as a white person.

"I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege," McIntosh writes. "So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege."

McIntosh includes a list of 26 things, she and other white people have in their invisible knapsacks. They range from being able to buy a house without fear that the neighbors might not be pleasant to her to being assured that a "flesh" colored bandage will match her skin.

"I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race," McIntosh writes. "I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group."

Fort River Elementary School Principal Russ Vernon-Jones and Crocker Farm Elementary School Principal Paul Wiley will be leading some of the discussions at the Nov. 30 curriculum day.

"We'll probably come out with more questions and challenges than we started out with," Wiley said, "and that would be great, from my perspective."

Mary Carey can be reached mary.carey@att.net.