Three teachers from Great Neck Public Schools have recently excelled in their respective fields.
Roger Ames, resident composer and former vocal music teacher at North High School, is the co-author of three books on teaching opera that are part of an ongoing series titled, “Music! Words! Opera!” The books are, “Hansel and Gretel,” “Aida,” and “Create Your Own Opera.” The first two books are updates; the last debuts with this series.
The series was commissioned by Opera America, a service organization in North America that promotes the creation, presentation and enjoyment of opera. The books include the new Common Core Curriculum standards. Much of what is presented is based on STAGES, a North High interdisciplinary program of music, drama, English and social studies.
“The series includes lesson plans and methods for teaching interdisciplinary study involving history, social studies, literary analysis, creative writing, and the arts. It provides music specialists with ways to work more cooperatively and inclusively with other classroom teachers,” Ames said. “‘Hansel and Gretel” and “Aida” are analytical in nature. “Create Your Own Opera” provides lesson plans for guiding students in writing their own opera or music-theater piece in collaboration with their teachers.”
Ames will be showcasing the three books at the New York State School Music Association Festival in December. It is hoped that these books will become part of music education curriculum.
Instrumental music teacher at North High School Joseph Rutkowski, was the highlighted contributor to the cover-story article, “The Art of Teaching Music,” in the July/August 2013 issue of Allegro, the magazine of Associated Musicians of Greater New York.
Rutkowski was one of several music teachers asked to explain how to be an effective teacher since, whether planned or not, teaching becomes part of most musicians’ careers.
“What I love about my job as a teacher is that I have an opportunity every day to help my students develop skills to become better at playing their instrument or listening to music with more awareness,” Rutkowski was quoted. “The best advice I can give [to be an effective] classroom teacher is to be prepared [especially] for the first day of classes. What happens in those first few days will set the tone for the whole year, and maybe even for a whole career.”
To achieve this, Rutkowski strongly recommends devoting time over the summer inspecting instruments and equipment, ordering supplies, preparing seating assignments, and more. He also urges young music teachers to care about their students to help them become musicians who know how to use their voice or instrument to stir the emotion and intellect in all who listen. If any students decide to pursue a career in music performance or music education, teachers would support and encourage their pursuit.
Daniel Weinstein, who teaches Advanced Placement Language and Composition and Creative Writing at South High School, will be making presentations at the New York State English Council Conference in October, and at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference in November.
At the NYSEC event, Weinstein will speak on “The Creativity Core: Transforming Language Arts Classrooms into Creativity Workshops.” He has also written a practical manual for teachers on this topic.
Weinstein will teach other English teachers how to integrate creative writing into their curriculum. At this conference and at NCTE, his presentations will include ideas for classroom practices and feature many samples of his students’ writing that he has collected over the years.
“Mind Mapping for Terrific Teachers and Superb Students” will be Weinstein’s presentation at the NCTE Conference. In his mind map creativity workshops, students come equipped with a pack of markers and are expected to submit several colorful, graphic pieces every quarter. Their works include individual designs and cartoons that graphically “map” words into visual poetry and other art forms.
In addition, this past July, Weinstein was a presenter at the Long Island Writing Project, where he showed teachers how to “integrate creativity into their daily teaching.” He credits the Writing Project, which he first attended in 1994, as the beginning of his “journey to being a writing-workshop teacher.”
