MPPS music still keeping students tuned
Themt. Pleasant Public Schools (MPPS) Musicdepartment continues to try to educate students on music.
When schools closed in March at the beginning of the pandemic, MPPS continued to teach students online. During this time, themusic department continued to holdmusic classes but also focused on the wellness of the students.
“The schedule stayed the same,” Fine Arts Instructor/ Director of Bands for Mt. Pleasant High School, Matt Taton said. “I talked to kids and made sure they had their instruments, theirmusic, and their books.”
Studentsparticipating inonline learning at the high school meet virtually every day, while students participating in face to face learning are separated into two cohorts (Blue andgold) thatmeetmondayTuesday and Thursday-friday respectively. Wednesday is teachers/ staff only and all learning is done remotely.
Middle School students participating fully online meet daily and middle school students participating face to face have their core classes daily during half days. All of their elective classes are online in the afternoons daily.
This has caused some issues as somehigh school and middle school classes overlap in termsof the scheduled time they occur and some teachers, like Taton, have classes at the high school andmiddle school.
“It’smore rigorous though classes tend to be shorter,” Taton said. “We’re making it work.”
Taton has been conductinghisfivebandclassesover Google Classroom which allows him to have different tabs for each band class. Students can meet with Taton online at a specific time and students can work on music history related assignments, scale work, and other music related assignments.
“It’s been difficult for beginners,” Taton said. “I’ve put up videos so students can learn to use their instruments. I hope kids can develop good habits though we might lose kids who want hands on learning.”
Centralmichigan University students have been doing their observation hours through watch interactions on Google Classroom.
Students are expected to check in before the school day ends in order to track them for attendance. This is particularly important
for Count Day (now Count Month) where students are expected to have two-way conversations with their teacher about any class work. This is expected to happen at least twice aweek for the rest of the month and can happen through email or any other means of contact.
In-person learning for the music department has smaller class sizing, masks requirements, and students are generally spread out in the classroom. Students have done some outdoor practicing on nice dayswhile ondayswithbad weather, the students come inside to listen to music, take notes and do assignments onmusic history and theory. Because COVID-19 is considered an airborne virus, students can not practice their instruments inside
Musical performances have been cancelled as the marching band’s competitive circuit has been shut down. The MPHS band “PIPELINE” will be performing at today’s football game, masked, and socially distanced.
“The last time we performed was at the Dec. 20th holiday concert in 2019 and we were planning on doing a concert in March but school shut down at that time,” Taton said.
The music department as well as the rest OFMPPS is prepared to go fully online should they need to but there are plans to continue the current learning plan.