I was now in my forties, teaching in a school system for children with severe cognitive and orthopedic disabilities.
Just learning the nomenclature was daunting, let alone developing and implementing strategies for musical accessibility and communication.
My new principal did not want to hire another therapist as in a “music therapist”. As she confided with me, the kids were being “lab coated to death” with therapists and doctors. She knew of my past experience as a general music teacher, choral director, and performer and wanted some of that vibe in her school.
Unbeknownst to me when I signed onboard, part of my assignment was to teach one half a day at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware at the First State School. In that the First State School was a public school, it received additional funding and support from the feds, the Colonial School District, John G. Leach School principal Dr. Connie Ames, Leach assistant principal Jack Jadach, and generous philanthropy from then-MBNA president Charlie Cawley.
I was the first music teacher my administration had sent to the hospital, primarily because they said “you get this”.
I'll go into my initial experiences at the school in another post.
In this chapter, I want to tell you about the hardest kid in the program to turn around and pull into our music program.
Nick was a sixth grader with a blood disorder that could kill him within minutes if it got out of control; therefore he was eligible for enrollment in the First State School. All the enrolled students had life-threatening chronic illnesses that, should they be in attending their normally assigned public school and had an episode, they might not survive the trip to the hospital from school. The kids ranged in age from four to twenty-one.
It was either my seventh or eighth week there when I had finally gotten my program off the ground at the hospital’s fourth floor school. I had one student holdout. Nick.
Nick was a junior high “Sk8er-boi-kind-of-kid”, usually dressed in Goth, and way into the Marvel Superhero Universe. I was no stranger to comic books: I started collecting them as a kid. I lost most of my oldest books during the “Great Comic Book Disaster of Fifth Grade” when my mother, in a pique of rage, threw away all my comic books away over something I did that really ticked her off.
I noticed that Nick came to school every day with three-ring binders of superhero cards. He collected all the sets and treated them with more respect than anything else I saw in his life. Nick was a bit of a superhero and role model to the younger kids in the program. He was edgy, had a lot of James Dean and Billie Joe Armstrong going on in his persona, and had a “I-don’t-take-crap-off-of-anyone” attitude.
For seven weeks, Nick didn’t participate or make a sound in music class. Instead, he sat off by himself reading comic books.
The day before my eighth session at the hospital, I went to Walmart and bought a full box set of Topps Marvel cards as well as a few extra single packs. I took the full set out and wrapped them with rubber bands and opened two small packs of cards and scattered them on the bottom of my guitar case before I put my guitar inside.
The next afternoon when I was teaching my First State School junior high group, I was doing my hokey “Hello” song where I pull my guitar out of the case and throw it up in the air. As I took my guitar out of its case, the static electricity had the trading cards clinging to the back of my guitar and sliding off to the floor. That got Nick’s attention.
“Whose are those?” he asked.
“They're mine. They’re some of my doubles. I guess I must have left them in my guitar case last night.”
“I’ve got more cards than you!”
“Yeah, I saw your card binders and figured you collected baseball cards.”
“Baseball? Are you a freak?”
I laughed. “No, I collect superhero cards too but I also like baseball so maybe I'm a superhero/baseball freak. Do you want to trade some of my doubles?”
“Nah. I probably have them already but I'll take a look.”
As predicted, he had all of my doubles but there were two that he considered coveted and fairly rare so I gave them to him.
I asked “Are there any little kids who would like my doubles that you don't want? You know the little guys better than I do. Why don't you take my doubles and give them to a kid that would appreciate them.”
And that was that. Those trading cards made the difference.
Nick was onboard all because of some trading cards and comic books. He was an expert on comic books and trading cards as well as blood meds. He knew the backstory on every character, in which issue they first appeared, and which artist had created them. I brought my cards in the next week. We traded comics most weeks.
Nick also knew the side-effects of his blood meds and their effect on his body and psyche. We talked about it often. I told him how proud I was that he had his head on straight and had developed the self-discipline needed to deal with his medicine-induced mood swings. He was a brave kid.
We had a good four years together in music class. It started with superhero trading cards and his self-disciplined drive to know all things Marvel. He saved money to organize his cards and books and protect them from everyday wear and tear. In his own way, he was a seventh grade expert.
He became one of the leaders in music class. He loved singing and playing Oasis and Green Day songs. During the holiday season, we caroled at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor.
I remember taking Nick and some of his friends down to the hospital cafeteria to treat them to healthy desserts. They distracted me and emptied a salt shaker in my coffee which was the source of merciless ridicule for months.
The key to exposing Nick’s developed self-discipline with comics and blood meds wasn’t a music strategy or found in an assessment. I was identifying and amplifying the joy that was already making a difference in his life. It was shining a light on that joy and building on that foundation.
Nick passed away during my fourth year in the program. I'll never forget how his burgeoning self-discipline with superheroes, comic books, and trading cards was a way for the two of us to connect and make the time we had together richer for the experience of knowing each other.
Just learning the nomenclature was daunting, let alone developing and implementing strategies for musical accessibility and communication.
My new principal did not want to hire another therapist as in a “music therapist”. As she confided with me, the kids were being “lab coated to death” with therapists and doctors. She knew of my past experience as a general music teacher, choral director, and performer and wanted some of that vibe in her school.
Unbeknownst to me when I signed onboard, part of my assignment was to teach one half a day at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware at the First State School. In that the First State School was a public school, it received additional funding and support from the feds, the Colonial School District, John G. Leach School principal Dr. Connie Ames, Leach assistant principal Jack Jadach, and generous philanthropy from then-MBNA president Charlie Cawley.
I was the first music teacher my administration had sent to the hospital, primarily because they said “you get this”.
I'll go into my initial experiences at the school in another post.
In this chapter, I want to tell you about the hardest kid in the program to turn around and pull into our music program.
Nick was a sixth grader with a blood disorder that could kill him within minutes if it got out of control; therefore he was eligible for enrollment in the First State School. All the enrolled students had life-threatening chronic illnesses that, should they be in attending their normally assigned public school and had an episode, they might not survive the trip to the hospital from school. The kids ranged in age from four to twenty-one.
It was either my seventh or eighth week there when I had finally gotten my program off the ground at the hospital’s fourth floor school. I had one student holdout. Nick.
Nick was a junior high “Sk8er-boi-kind-of-kid”, usually dressed in Goth, and way into the Marvel Superhero Universe. I was no stranger to comic books: I started collecting them as a kid. I lost most of my oldest books during the “Great Comic Book Disaster of Fifth Grade” when my mother, in a pique of rage, threw away all my comic books away over something I did that really ticked her off.
I noticed that Nick came to school every day with three-ring binders of superhero cards. He collected all the sets and treated them with more respect than anything else I saw in his life. Nick was a bit of a superhero and role model to the younger kids in the program. He was edgy, had a lot of James Dean and Billie Joe Armstrong going on in his persona, and had a “I-don’t-take-crap-off-of-anyone” attitude.
For seven weeks, Nick didn’t participate or make a sound in music class. Instead, he sat off by himself reading comic books.
The day before my eighth session at the hospital, I went to Walmart and bought a full box set of Topps Marvel cards as well as a few extra single packs. I took the full set out and wrapped them with rubber bands and opened two small packs of cards and scattered them on the bottom of my guitar case before I put my guitar inside.
The next afternoon when I was teaching my First State School junior high group, I was doing my hokey “Hello” song where I pull my guitar out of the case and throw it up in the air. As I took my guitar out of its case, the static electricity had the trading cards clinging to the back of my guitar and sliding off to the floor. That got Nick’s attention.
“Whose are those?” he asked.
“They're mine. They’re some of my doubles. I guess I must have left them in my guitar case last night.”
“I’ve got more cards than you!”
“Yeah, I saw your card binders and figured you collected baseball cards.”
“Baseball? Are you a freak?”
I laughed. “No, I collect superhero cards too but I also like baseball so maybe I'm a superhero/baseball freak. Do you want to trade some of my doubles?”
“Nah. I probably have them already but I'll take a look.”
As predicted, he had all of my doubles but there were two that he considered coveted and fairly rare so I gave them to him.
I asked “Are there any little kids who would like my doubles that you don't want? You know the little guys better than I do. Why don't you take my doubles and give them to a kid that would appreciate them.”
And that was that. Those trading cards made the difference.
Nick was onboard all because of some trading cards and comic books. He was an expert on comic books and trading cards as well as blood meds. He knew the backstory on every character, in which issue they first appeared, and which artist had created them. I brought my cards in the next week. We traded comics most weeks.
Nick also knew the side-effects of his blood meds and their effect on his body and psyche. We talked about it often. I told him how proud I was that he had his head on straight and had developed the self-discipline needed to deal with his medicine-induced mood swings. He was a brave kid.
We had a good four years together in music class. It started with superhero trading cards and his self-disciplined drive to know all things Marvel. He saved money to organize his cards and books and protect them from everyday wear and tear. In his own way, he was a seventh grade expert.
He became one of the leaders in music class. He loved singing and playing Oasis and Green Day songs. During the holiday season, we caroled at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor.
I remember taking Nick and some of his friends down to the hospital cafeteria to treat them to healthy desserts. They distracted me and emptied a salt shaker in my coffee which was the source of merciless ridicule for months.
The key to exposing Nick’s developed self-discipline with comics and blood meds wasn’t a music strategy or found in an assessment. I was identifying and amplifying the joy that was already making a difference in his life. It was shining a light on that joy and building on that foundation.
Nick passed away during my fourth year in the program. I'll never forget how his burgeoning self-discipline with superheroes, comic books, and trading cards was a way for the two of us to connect and make the time we had together richer for the experience of knowing each other.
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