learning today ... leading tomorrow

Learning Today . . .Leading Tomorrow

A supplement to the Craig Daily Press

2 | April 2016 A Supplement to the Craig Daily PressLearning Today ... Leading Tomorrow

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A Supplement to the Craig Daily Press April 2016 | 3Learning Today ... Leading Tomorrow

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Publisherrenee Campbell 970-875-1788

circulation managerGary Cole 970-875-1785

editorNoelle leavitt riley 970-875-1790

Advertising managerSheli Steele 970-875-1782

creative Services managerlindsay Porter 970-875-1780

Writers & PhotographersAndy Bockelman 970-875-1793

Michael Neary 970-875-1794Patrick Kelly 970-875-1795

AdvertisingCori Kroese 970-875-1783

Melissa Valentine 970-875-1781

Advertising designJanette Najera, Julia Perry

Administrative AssistantChristy Barnes 970-875-1797

Highlighting good works in our educational system

The intricacies of learning are fascinating, vast and beautifully choreographed by teachers, parents and organizations — both inside and outside the classroom.

The Craig Daily Press editorial team spent the last several weeks gathering information on how students in Moffat County thrive with tools pro-vided by the school district, Colorado Northwestern Community College and programs offered by the Boys & Girls Club and other groups.

i’m extremely pleased to bring you the news-paper’s second installment of learning Today… leading Tomorrow, where we highlight ways our youth gain admiration for life through learning.

As Moffat County School District sifts through financial woes, children and teenagers are still plug-ging away at their studies each day. Sure, there are many concerns about “what’s next” for our schools, but that doesn’t mean that great things aren’t happen-ing on a daily basis that propel students to greatness.

That’s why this special section is so important to our area — because without the daily interactions and dedication to their learning, our youth would be lost. And there are hundreds of examples of how much children get out of our school district and out-side programs.

The passion for students in our county goes way beyond the classroom, and we must not forget that it takes an entire community to leave a positive impression on students.

last year we highlighted student organizations at Moffat County high School and various strengths at the middle school and at our four elementary schools.

This year, we took a different approach. We found wonderful bits of news at all of the learning insti-tutes in Craig and outlined how they help grow the knowledge base of our youth.

if you’re looking for rays of sunshine within our educational system, it’s my hope — as editor of this newspaper — that you’ll find it within these pages.

We all want to see Moffat County’s educa-tion thrive, so please take a moment and read about those who help do just that.

Contact Noelle Leavitt Riley at 970-875-1790 or [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @noelleleavitt.

from The

ediTor


By Andy BockelmAnTeamwork is crucial on the football

field and the basketball court, but there’s another group present during those games for which working together is essential.

The members of the moffat county High School band program have a love for music, but there are limitless possibilities involved in learning to master a masterpiece and it requires a large gathering of people to work in harmony.

“This is one of the few places in the classroom where you can authentically use group work,” instructor John Bolton said. “The nature of music is bringing people together, being collaborative, working technical things in an emotional way.”

during a typical day in the band room, there are both expected elements — such as loud blasts from the brass section or a crash from the cymbals — and unexpected, like personal anecdotes from the director that sometimes get students giggling so much they need a minute to recover.

Stories and jokes circle back around to the task at hand, though, the goal of which is to help musicians sound a little better by the end of the class session than when they entered.

Proficiency is one thing, Bolton said, and most students need little help in playing at this point, many already boasting years of experience. It’s conveying the emotional subtext of selections that shows how well the content of the sheet music is understood.

When everyone is doing their job and tuned in just right, it’s like being transport-ed through time and space, the instructor said.

“I can play something that’s 50 years old, and it’s right there, brand-new,” Bolton said.

The process of learning music of any kind is more than just notes on a page and the sounds that come from it, Bolton added — it’s developing abstract thinking for a different sort of language, it’s comprehend-ing structure and architecture of what a composer intended, it’s going on a journey that’s as enlightening as any piece of lit-erature.

music can even be seen as a mathemati-cal equation while it’s being played, said

mcHS senior Wes Atkin.“music strongly correlates with math,”

he said. “There’s a whole note or a half note, and you have to subdivide it.”

Atkin is a trumpeter and, along with Bekah Bird, a drum major who has con-ducted his classmates. He said his interest in things like choir and drama has flowed from band, and he intends to keep going with it.

“To me it feels like a way for people to be able to express themselves in a way they wouldn’t be able,” he said.

In addition to performances across the state such as Jazz Fest in Greeley earlier this month, the moffat county band regu-larly provides tunes for sporting events, graduation ceremonies and the occasional local parade. Their end-of-year concert takes place may 10, with the craig middle School performance may 17.

The final concert of the school calendar isn’t one Bolton likes to identify as a culmi-native display of the year’s education but one where musicians can shine both indi-vidually and as a group.

“I’m looking at our spring concert as a great time,” he said. “We have worked hard, gone to festivals. I want to walk off that stage grinning from ear to ear, that’s my goal. If I can do that, I think it will mean we’ve accomplished our goals this year.”

Contact Andy Bockelman at 970-875-1793 or [email protected].

John Bolton directs the members of the moffat county High School concert band during a practice session. The act of bringing together a large group to create something as one is music's entire purpose, Bolton said. Photo by Andy Bockelman

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Bolton: Music unites, enhances ways of thinking for students

The members of the clarinet section and other wood-winds of the moffat county High School concert band work to stay in sync. Photo by Andy Bockelman


The Vision & Learning Connection

1 in 10 children has a vision problem signifi cant enough to impact learning

“20/20”only means a child can see at a distance but may lack skills needed for learning, such as:

Typical vision screenings can miss at least 50% of vision problems

If you think your child may be struggling with an undiagnosed vision problem, a

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Children withvision problems can bemisdiagnosedwith

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That means over 5 millionchildren in the US alone

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By MiChAel NeAryWhen Mariana Morales comes to the

Gateway Center at Colorado Northwestern Community College, in Craig, she may be looking for help with a paper.

“i come here when i need advice for my papers — an opinion so i can make them better,” said Morales, 20, in her first year of study at the college.

But she also comes when she simply seeks a peaceful place to work.

“it’s so quiet here, you can work and not get disturbed,” she said.

That’s the kind flexibility that Denise Perdue, director of developmental educa-tion for CNCC, wants to offer students who come to the Gateway Center.

“The adult learner here has a plethora of things that have happened to them and plac-es they have been so when you ask them a question, it needs to be relatable to them,” Perdue said.

Perdue oversees Gateway, a center where students can receive tutoring for their classwork and also explore the larger questions about the directions their educa-

tion may take. Perdue describes Gateway as “a place that really facilitates that begin-ning discussion with students” along with “that movement toward where they want to go, what they want to do and what propen-sities they have to be successful.”

Perdue began her work with the col-lege last summer, and she noted one goal of encouraging more students to come to the center, then called the Adult learning Assistance Program. Perdue renamed the center during a meeting, thinking that cen-ter could be like a gate, or a Gateway.

Perdue made a distinction between ped-agogy and andragogy practices. The first, she said, focuses on teaching methods for any given discipline, but the second homes in on the needs of adult learners.

“The adult person comes in with a lot of life experiences,” she said. “We have to meet them there. We have to create an environment that asks questions about and gives a value to experiences they’ve already had.”

And that interaction may range beyond textbooks and classrooms. Perdue recalled

the conditions that helped one adult stu-dent to learn — conditions that were simple ones, but not always found easily in a bustling college building.

“What she loved was tea,” Perdue said, “and then a quiet place to study.”

Jan rogers, tutor and test proctor at CNCC, said sometimes the best way to help students involves urging them to slow down a bit.

“Sometimes,” said rogers, who works in the college’s Gateway Center, “they want to be able to plug stuff in and come up with an answer instead of understanding what the big picture is.”

And for rogers, talking to students, shar-ing experiences from her life, can help to ease the learning process. She recalled times when students might come into the

center and say, “i just can’t do math.” That leads her to tell a story.

“i’ll tell them the story about when i was in school and i absolutely struggled with math,” she said. “Finally when i was in col-lege i had a math instructor that went back to the beginning, and explained things and that whole semester i was saying, ‘Oh, now i understand.’”

it’s the sort of personal touch that works with Dru Nielson, in his first semester at CNCC.

“i like to come in before a test and really study,” he said. “here (the tutors) explain to you personally, step by step.”

Contact Michael Neary at 970-875-1794 or [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @CDP_Education.

Mariana Morales, a student at Colorado Northwestern Community College, in Craig, comes to the Gateway Center to get feedback on her writing and to find a quiet place to study. Photo by Michael Neary

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Knez: elementary-level learning increases later mastery of languaget

By ANDy BOCKelMANlearning another language can open up

the world to a student, and the sooner the groundwork is laid the better.

Kids at ridgeview elementary School have received an introduction to the Spanish language as part of an after-school program this semester, offered for the first time at the school.

“The ridgeview parent community really valued a language opportunity for our chil-dren,” said Principal Amber Clark, noting that designing the sessions as an extracur-ricular activity was the best way to meet the need.

The weekly courses are intended to provide a casual approach to the dialect with activities and vocabulary and build an interest in being bilingual.

Jessica Knez, language instructor for Moffat County high School, began working with a small group of ridgeview students earlier this year.

Classes are similar to what a high school freshman enrolled in Spanish might learn but at a slower pace, such as days of the week, numbers and weather conditions.

The simple sentence “está lloviendo” — “it’s raining” — is an example of con-

versational Spanish that provides basis for further learning.

The level of immersion is not intense enough to expect fluency, but creating a foundation is key, Knez said.

“i feel like kids at this age retain a little bit more in the week that i give them than my older kids that i see every other day,” she said, noting that educational studies show learning new material often sticks more at the elementary level.

Making the process fun is also important. repeating phrases off flash cards helps instill the pronunciation and definition, but students got more of a visual association of how to verbally articulate hair and eye color through the board game “Guess Who?

After a session, second-grader Brooklyn Garcia went through some of the words she learned en español for basic body parts, pointing to her cabeza (head) and ojos (eyes).

learning something new in different ways each week is part of what she enjoys.

“it was really fun to go up into the com-puter lab and play these games where you learned about Spanish and animals,” Garcia said.

Nurturing the desire to learn more is part of the goal, Knez said, and though high school

and college are years away, elementary school truly can set the tone for the future.

“The kids that do have the experience of learning Spanish or any other language, once they get up to those higher levels and

it’s more high stakes, it’s a little bit easier for them once they’ve been immersed and know what it takes,” she said.


instructor Jessica Knez reminds students of the phrases for hair and eye color as they examine suspects in the game "Guess Who?" during an after-school Spanish class at ridgeview elementary School. The program gives kids an intro-duction to the language with activities to enhance learning. Photo by Andy Bockelman


caLvary encourages chrisTian eLemenTsPrivate school shares faith

with communityBy Andy BockelmAn

For students of calvary Baptist School, the curriculum includes sub-jects like math and english, but both in and out of the classroom, sharing their faith with the world is part of the learning experience.

calvary Baptist School is a private education establishment that oper-ates through calvary Baptist church as an outlet for students in kinder-garten through eighth-grade.

With more than 40 kids enrolled and even more included in the adja-cent eagle’s nest Preschool, the school is going strong after begin-ning in 2010.

Founded as a program that incor-porated elements of christianity into its lesson plans, calvary emphasizes living the faith, said teacher Amber Snow, who oversees first- and sec-ond-graders.

The school has attended many of the same regional highlights that moffat county School district has, such as the meeker Sheepdog classic and dinosaur national monument.

However, other field trips are

intended to be a reflection of the reli-gious tenets they teach.

kids and teachers from calvary recently visited Sandrock Ridge care & Rehabilitation to visit elderly and disabled residents, students sharing their favorite books with them, pass-ing out fruit and also singing to them.

“We’ve been talking about being kind to the elderly and really being kind to everyone in general, liv-ing out their actions,” Snow said, noting that the parable of the Good Samaritan is an important guideline in how to treat the people of the world with compassion.

As a parent of three in calvary’s programs, Snow said she appreci-ates the kind of morals that her kids receive as part of their education.

Becky Smith began teaching fifth- and sixth-grade students this school year and has thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

“It’s essential teaching them about God,” she said. “A lot of them have no idea that this world is in such peril, and it’s good that they want to help.”

The smaller private school envi-ronment is one that Smith said has

an impact on how kids interact with each other, stating that a larger set-ting can overwhelm some students and make it difficult for them to feel accepted.

“Here they can just be them-selves,” she said. “They don’t have

limitations of other kids telling them, ‘no, that’s not cool.’ They get excited about being who they are and being individuals.”


calvary Baptist School students Stormie largent, right, and Heidi Snow read aloud for residents of Sandrock Ridge care & Rehabilitation, including mike kawcak. Photo by Andy Bockelman

calvary Baptist School teacher Amber Snow, far right, and parent volunteer Hannah mannon chat up Rudy Alvarez, center, along with students Jordyn mannon, far left, and Ty Ivy. many of the teachers at the private school are parents of current students. Photo by Andy Bockelman

Students of calvary Baptist School perform faith-based songs for the residents of Sandrock Ridge care & Rehabilitation. calvary is a private school in craig that operates through calvary Baptist church, available for kindergarten through eighth-grade, as well as eagle's nest Preschool. Photo by Andy Bockelman


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By MiChAel NeAryChris Miller, owner of Miller Family

Appliance, in Craig, saw a young student from Florida named Acacia Woodley at an appliance show about a year-and-a-half ago — she was about 12 years old — and he was taken by what she had to say about bullying and about friendship.

“She was being bullied, and she turned it into something positive,” he said. “She’s grown that into something that’s helping a lot of people.”

Acacia developed the idea to create for schools what she calls “friendship kits,” including benches where children can sit together and cultivate friendships. So she started a company called Tiny Girl, Big Dream, according to the company’s website, which can be found at tinygirlbigdream.org.

“The Mission of Tiny Girl, Big Dream comes from the life of a tiny girl, a girl who was born of magic,” the website says. “A girl without complete arms who, despite her differences, or perhaps because of them, intuitively knows what it feels like to be left out, not to be part of the ‘normal’ group.”

Miller decided he’d like to see these bench-

es come to the community somehow, and so he talked with Marci Marumoto, advisory board member with Grand Futures Prevention Coalition. he said she came into the store one day and said it would be a great project for the Moffat County Teen Council at Grand Futures.

“i said, ‘yeah it would, and i would love to pair with you guys,’” Miller recalled.

Marumoto described how the pervasive possibility of bullying made it an important project for the Teen Council.

"i think it can happen in any kind of arena, so it was a good fit," she said.

Friendship Benches are now placed in four Moffat County School District elemen-tary schools. Miller said he purchased one of the benches, and he said another was purchased by TCB Contracting, in Craig. Moffat County Teen Council raised money for the other two benches.

The benches are produced by Cr Plastic Products — a company that's worked with Tiny Girl, Big Dream on the project.

The schools also received other materi-als in the friendship kit, including colorful bracelets for the students.

Principal Kamisha Siminoe, of Sandrock

elementary School, said students in the school will be able to use the bench to talk about smaller disputes before they have a chance to fester and create larger problems.

“if it’s a big issue they’re supposed to come and talk to an adult,” she said. “For a smaller issue, when they’re trying to work through some things, they’d sit on the bench and talk to each other.”

Siminoe said the bench will be placed in a prominent place in the school so that students will be able to go there when they want to talk through a problem.

“Kids will make that choice,” she said.

“Kids know where it is, and they can come and sit and work things out.”

Miller said he’s gotten affirmative feed-back about the benches so far, and he described the way his own grandchildren motivated him to try to improve life at school for kids — and to cultivate the sorts of friendships Acacia has described.

“i thought (the project) was important,” Miller said. “i’ve got nine grandkids, eight of them in schools here in town … how do we make them grow like that?”

Contact Michael Neary at 970-875-1794 or [email protected].

communiTy brings friendship benches

To schooLs

Fourth-grader Matthew loyd, left, and fifth-grader Forrest Siminoe sit and talk on Sandrock elementary School’s Friendship Bench. Photo by Michael Neary


Allison Villard, an eighth-grader whose poem came in first in the carol Jacobson memorial Poetry contest, works on a project at craig middle School. Photo by michael neary

Carol Jacobson Memorial Poetry Contest lets students explore beyond classroom corridors

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By mIcHAel neARyWhen eliana mack wrote a poem for her

middle school english class, she thought way beyond the usual classroom, compar-ing hope to a “speck.”

“I’ve had to use hope a lot in my life,” said eliana, an eighth-grader at craig middle School, “and I feel like it’s in the most unknown places, in the place where you don’t think you’ll ever find it.”

eliana’s poem, “The Speck Who changed the World,” was among the top three poems chosen in the carol Jacobson memorial Poetry contest. The contest featured a chance for students to read their work out loud, along with cash prizes provided by the northwest colorado chapter of Parrotheads. Writing began in the classroom, but through the students’ imaginations, it branched far beyond any school corridors.

david morris, who teaches writing at colorado northwestern community college, coordinated the contest for the craig middle School students. He described how the assignment ranged outside of the classroom, dipping into waters where students can experience live audiences.

“Because they know there’s a pos-

sibility that they’re going to be published or people are going to listen to them — physically listen to them — I think that they put just a little bit more effort into the work,” said morris, a poet and a former cmS teacher.

Allison Villard, an eighth-grader whose poem came in first in the contest, agreed.

“you might put more effort into it if it you know it’s not just for a grade,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotion and hard work that goes into it.”

Allison’s poem, “The Ranch,” won first place in the contest. She explained the way the place has inspired her to write.

“I usually write about the same things — nature and my ranch,” she said. “I like it up there.”

Allison’s poem contains an ample amount of figurative language, and it’s also nourished by strong sensations.

“I taste the smoke from the campfire in the air,” she writes in one line.

morris stressed the importance of using the senses as he introduced the contest to the students, but he also noted that middle school students are capable of using figu-rative language.

“kids are working with figurative language down in the lower elementary

grades a little bit, so they have plenty of time to develop an appreciation for it,” he said.

Tommy dickhaut, whose poem “Perro en la nieve” won second prize, also includes strong figurative language that evolves and transforms from line to line. Two lines read this way: “The snow falls slow as a feath-er/As it lands to form a gentle blanket.”

Forrest Watson, an eighth-grade lan-guage arts teacher at the middle school, worked with the students as they crafted their poems. He said that he helped them to edit the work, and that he also encour-aged them to seek out descriptive lan-guage in their poems.

Watson also stressed the importance of developing an audience outside of the teacher — and a purpose that ranges beyond achieving a good grade.

“If students work hard on it, they will be excited to share it with the entire class,” he said. “It’s cool to see that.”

other students honored in the contest included Fiona connor, Ashley lemoine, Rylie Anderson, nikki currie and makala Herndon.



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Vision

By PATriCK KellyFor some of Moffat County’s students, a traditional high

school curriculum is not the preferred path to a diploma.To accommodate students who may not be able to attend

classes all day or might work better in a different type of learning environment, the Moffat County School District offers the youth experiencing Success program.

Students in the yeS program are expected to attend the Alternative School for four hours a day, allowing them go beyond the classroom and do things like hold down a job, take care of family or dual enroll at Colorado Northwestern Community College.

Kobe Switzler, a sophomore at the Alternative School, said he switched over to the yeS program after his first semester as a freshman at Moffat County high School.

he said he didn’t enjoy the typical classroom environ-ment and found that it was holding him back in his educa-tion.

At the Alternative School, Switzler said he is able to work at a quicker pace without the distractions of a tradi-tional classroom.

“Most of the time you’re all on your own,” he said. “you don’t have to wait for the rest of the class.”

Teachers Joy Tegtman and larry ensminger take turns supervising the class and grading assignments, but the stu-dents do most of the work on their own through a program called Apex learning.

Students can log on, pick what they want to study for the day and complete as much or as little work as they want.

“it’s puts a lot of responsibilities in the kid’s hands,”

Tegtman said.Tegtman said she thinks the self-accountability aspect

is a good thing for youth to learn and most of the students stay on top of their schoolwork.

She has also seen the Alternative School help students get back on track after being away from school.

One of Tegtman’s students wasn’t keeping up with cred-its after having a baby but is now excelling in the yeS pro-gram, she said.

All in all, the Alternative School is there to ensure Moffat County’s youth get the education they need regardless of the students personal circumstances.

“We meet a diverse range of needs,” she said.Contact Patrick Kelly at 970-875-1795 or pkelly@

CraigDailyPress.com or follow him on Twitter @M_PKelly.

Sophomore Kobe Switzler studies William Shakespeare's "Macbeth." Photo by Patrick Kelly

Moffat County Alternative School gives

students opportunity for success


Andrea maneotis leads her steer, omaha, back onto the trailer after being weighed at the moffat county Fairgrounds in 2014. File photo

Agriculture and financial literacy come together through 4-H

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By PATRIck kellylearning how to handle money is a criti-

cal life skill that most students are only exposed to outside of the classroom.

In moffat county, one of the organiza-tions at the forefront of teaching kids financial literacy is 4-H.

J.d. Sexton, 4-H county extension direc-tor and agent, said when most people think of 4-H, they think about animals — but it is much more than that and all of the projects involve keeping financial records.

“We just want them to be good citi-zens,” said Sexton, adding that the prima-ry purpose of 4-H is to help kids become contributing members of society.

Anytime a student does a project in 4-H, he or she is required to keep a log of all the expenses. This can be as simple or as complex of a process as it is made by the participant, Sexton said.

kids who take part in raising livestock are responsible for recording all the costs of raising the animal and how that affects the final profit when the animal is sold at market.

Andrea maneotis, 17, has been involved with 4-H and raising livestock since she was 8 and has competed at the national level.

She said through the program she has learned an immense amount about raising animals and the financial responsibilities that are attached.

“Pretty much everything that I’ve learned has been through 4-H and being part of the agriculture industry,” she said. “It’s just real life.”

In April, colorado celebrated financial literacy and encouraged citizens to be active in planning their financial futures.

“Taking just five minutes to become

more aware of your finances could make all the difference when it comes to build-ing and maintaining your financial health,” department of Regulatory Agencies executive director Joe neguse said.

Republican Rep. Scott Tipton in the 3rd congressional district was also engaged in promoting financial literacy with trips to several colorado high schools through-out April.

“As parents and leaders in our com-munities, it’s important to help develop practical skills and positive associations with money in our young people,” Tipton said in a statement. “Programs like these help to further understanding of personal finances and the best practices in money management.”

Contact Patrick Kelly at 970-875-1795 or [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @M_PKelly.


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One of my Dad’s favorite sayings regarding his approach to raising three boys was, “i always thought inspiration was a baseball bat.” his theory of inspiration worked well within a loving family. Today, public education is attempting to employ Dad’s philosophy but lacks the requisite love. We see simmering anger and cynicism aimed at public schools for a wide variety of reasons, and against this backdrop i have to confess my Jerry Maguire-esque mission state-ment about education.

young adults are at the peak of their youthful idealism. They want to believe in their future and aspire to greatness. We motivate and inspire when we connect to this glorious youthful pas-sion and encourage them to rise above the bitter cynicism biting at our collective heels. Now, more than ever, we need them to maintain hope during this time of pessimism and relativism.

however, the state is trying to instill educa-tional discipline through a growing and smother-ing checklist of state standards, aligned curricu-lum, common assessments, standardized tests, and all the other buzzwords and acronyms of the corporatized world of education. Our children are more than a data set for the state to ana-lyze, categorize and compartmentalize. instead of being inspired there is growing resentment, and millions have walked away from traditional public schools.

i view teaching as my vocation in life, not just a job. My chosen field of study, history, is all about working to motivate students to not only learn history, but also reflect on some of his-tory’s greatest individuals and be inspired to live a powerful and meaningful life.

in World history we recently studied the

movements of non-violence and civil disobedi-ence led by Gandhi, Mandela and Martin luther King Jr. After reading a series of primary source documents we discussed why these move-ments successfully changed unjust systems and attempted to heal historic wounds to create a more just civilization.

Next, we discussed a variety of adjectives brainstormed by students that drove these movements: courage, discipline, honesty, eth-ics, solidarity, unity and (gasp!) martyrdom. What do these words mean in their own lives? When confronted with the chance to stand up for the truth will they be able to? Studying and acquiring a knowledge of history and making it relevant and exciting to the lives of students is at the heart of teaching history. it’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

Friends and fellow citizens, the teachers in our schools are doing a darn good job inspiring your kids! i offer you a few examples of recent graduates: an immigrant’s son graduated from Colorado School of Mines and is now doing international work in two countries; a young man attending West Point will soon graduate and defend us; and one of our finest will soon attend a premier ivy league school. i could go on and on.

Scores of our students have believed and allowed themselves to be inspired. They have taken advantage of all that is offered at MChS, worked hard and are now applying their skills and ideals to elevate our civilization. in the end, just maybe, it’s our children that will inspire us... if we have the courage to give them the chance.

James Neton is a history teacher at Moffat County High School.

worKing To inspire sTudenTs

By JAMeS NeTON


east elementary School music Teacher Tanya young practices with fourth-graders Gerardo Guereca morales, left, Ruby Short and Joselyn moriel. Photo by michael neary

Young taps technology, theory and love of music in her interaction with students

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By mIcHAel neARyWhen students at east elementary

School come to Tanya young’s music class, they enter the room singing. In fact, the first few minutes of interaction — and much of the communication after that — take the form of song.

For young, who's taught at east elementary for about nine years, cultivating that musical spirit is vital. She described how the act of being sung to, as well sing-ing, can help to fashion a child’s musicality.

“If they’ve been sung to as toddlers and young children, they’ll have a lot more experience with it,” she said.

That sort of interaction, she said, cre-ates an effect that’s much different from listening to a radio or some other mecha-nized recording.

“When you have babies, you talk to them so they learn the language,” she said. “If you have children listening to music on cds that’s at least exposing them to music, but if you sing to them you interact. music is an interaction. It’s something that can create a bond. There’s a reason why mothers sing lullabies to their babies.”

young said she’s developed an even greater appreciation of music since she’s become a mother.

“I sing all day long,” she said. “They’ve had music from when they were in the womb.”

young said she and other music teach-ers in the moffat county School district have been looking especially hard at the musical teaching approaches advocated by John m. Feierabend. young had a book

by Feierabend close at hand, and she said she’d recently listened him deliver a pre-sentation at a colorado music educators Association conference.

“He has this program called ‘First Steps in music,’” she said. “He made up some words: ‘artfulness,’ ‘tunefulness’ and ‘beatifulness,’ and so his program works on those three aspects of music making.”

Feierabend writes of “the music that is interwoven throughout our lives” on his website, and that’s clearly a concept that young threads into her teaching, as well.

“He advocates movement, lots of move-ment,” she said. She also noted that he encourages cultivating a kind of “artful-ness,” a way of thinking about music that’s different from everyday speech and communication.

“you work on using the voice and you try to get the kids using their head voice,” she said, demonstrating with a soaring musical note. “most of the kids use their speaking voice, which doesn’t get them into singing.”

Throughout her teaching, young is tap-ping technology, including iPads, but she offered a caution.

“I want students to use them as a tool, rather than as a toy,” she said.

young said she’s experimented with a “flipped classroom,” where she’s made videos to complement the material she’s presented in class and then asked stu-dents to apply lessons from those videos to their own playing. Students send her videos of themselves playing, and she gives them written feedback.

east elementary School fifth-grader

Samantha Willems talked enthusiastically about those iPads, and she said Google classroom is helping students to prepare for a recorder concert later in the year.

The recorder is the instrument assigned to fifth-graders.

Samantha also noted the way Google classroom allows students to practice songs, accumulate points, and move step by step through various levels.

That, explained fifth-grader Ian Trevenen, is where practice becomes important.

“It was kind of hard reading the music on the lines,” he said. “I wasn’t used to that on the recorders. But now that we have a little bit more practice it’s been easier to read these notes.”

Ian said he’d learned to read music in young’s classes — a point that led east elementary School Principal Sarah Hepworth to note the importance of music classes in the students’ lives.

“For most of the students in our school, it’s probably the first exposure students have had to music,” she said.

young describes her goal in teaching music as something that goes beyond any kind of professional preparation.

“you want them to go into life and to be an appreciator of music — and maybe make music, or at least to go to concerts, to sing lullabies to their babies, to dance nicely at their weddings,” she said. “music is such an enrichment to life, but it’s not necessarily something that everybody is going to become a professional at.”



By mIcHAel neARyIn the concoctions, contraptions and

controlled chaos after-school session that Tanya Ferguson directs, children at the Boys & Girls club of craig make compli-cated objects — and they watch the way various objects and chemicals react when they encounter each other.

In other words, as Ferguson says, they do science, even if they’re not always aware of it.

She described an experiment with a mento candy and diet soda.

“When you drop it in diet soda, it has a reaction with carbon, and it will shoot foamy stuff about 10 feet up out of the two liter bottle,” she explained. “So we talk about different chemical reactions.”

The Tuesday afternoon sessions, which Ferguson also calls c-squared, until recently were referred to as Girl Science — sessions in which girls were encour-aged to do science on their own. Ferguson said the center will now rotate the Tuesday sessions, with girls one week and boys another. The boys, she said, were feeling left out, and so the staff decided to make the change to balance things out.

Still, Ferguson explained, it’s important to carve out time for girls to do science

since many girls still seem to receive the message, subtle or otherwise, that sci-ence is a subject for boys. Ferguson said when the club conducts activities that involve mechanical play, girls are less likely to participate.

“If leGos or k'nex are offered, I would say probably 90 percent of the (children participating) are boys,” she said.

encouraging girls to participate in scien-tific or mechanical activities, she said, is helpful to do.

“It’s just kind of nice to have a girls’ only (session) to encourage them to come,” she said.

on Tuesday, Ferguson presented a dozen girls at the club with tubes, duct tape, string, marbles and other materials to create a “contraption” that would deliver marbles to the girls’ desired destination. The girls had to work together, and they also had to experiment to determine the most effective angles that would send the marbles to the target spot.

When the girls explained what they like best about the science experiments, their responses seemed to defy, or at least to blend, traditionally accepted gender patterns.

“We can discover really cool stuff,” said Alondra Rodriguez-Quintana, a fourth-

grader at Sandrock elementary School. She said she especially likes to “make soda explode” and watch it shoot up in the air.

Sandrock second-grader Trinity Garcia said she likes to practice construction techniques as she builds dollhouses.

“my favorite thing to make is dollhouses out of cardboard boxes,” Trinity said.

Ferguson noted some scientific concepts that come into play on these Tuesday after-noons at the club. during the most recent session with the tubes, for instance, geo-metrical shapes and angles were under study, even if that sort of terminology wasn’t used. Ferguson said other experi-ments involved density.

“We did density bottles, or rainbow bottles, layered with vinegar, dish soap, honey, shampoo,” she said. “everything had a different density, and (separated) so they made a rainbow.”

For Stella Tate, a Sunset elementary School second-grader, a session with just girls worked well. She noted her favorite aspect of the Tuesday activities.

“It’s girls only,” Stella said. “Boys that are kids are sometimes very noisy.”


Hailey Schaffner, left, Trinity Garcia, Alondra Rodriguez-Quintana and Xya mcmahon work on a “contraption” to deliver marbles at the Boys & Girls club of craig. Photo by michael neary

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Sessions give girls — and boys — a chance to develop their love of science


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