Leader of the band is retiring in Mystic
Middle school’s Hilbie gave it his all for 21 years
Stonington — Some may wonder if music teacher Jim Hilbie ever leaves his classroom at Mystic Middle School.
He’s there every weekday at 6:45 a.m. for before-school instruction and often is still there at 8:30 at night conducting one of the school’s various bands.
Now after 21 years at the school and 35 in education, the father of the school’s award-winning band program will retire in June.
“I worked as hard as I could every day so I’m not sad about leaving. If you do the best you can, there’s no regrets,” he said last week during one of the few quiet moments in his classroom.
The 57-year-old Montville resident taught in Terryville and then Manchester before getting the job here. He said he always enjoyed teaching middle school students as opposed to high schoolers.
“In high school they have their mind set about what they want to do, but in middle school I can have more of an impact,” he said. “I can help develop an appreciation for music and guide them.”
Hilbie has even kept track of how many students have been in his beginning instrumental music class during his 21 years in Stonington — 1,386.
“They come down and they are ready to learn,” he said.
Hilbie, though, teaches his students how to play in a way that is different from many of his colleagues’ approach.
They do not read music and play. Instead they learn how to play music by ear listening to a gamut of tunes that range from the theme to “Jeopardy” to “Crazy Train” by Black Sabbath.
“It’s more natural to learn through your ears . ... ,” he said. “A lot of great musicians don’t read music. In the beginning I want them to learn like how babies learn to speak. We hear songs, we sing songs, we get them in our heads and we play them. It’s like how we teach the ABCs and speaking. You learn sounds and vocabulary before you learn to read,” he explained.
Only later does Hilbie introduce written music to his students.
Every student in grades kindergarten through 8 takes music in Stonington, something Hilbie said is important for their overall education.
“I call it sound art,” he said. “If you play beautiful music you can move people. It’s a very emotional thing.”
Mystic Middle School Principal Greg Keith said Hilbie has always been “an advocate for music for the kids” and was a big reason the school was named the state’s outstanding middle school in 2002.
“There’s never a student he doesn’t want to support with music. That’s a tribute to him as a person,” Keith said.
Chorus teacher Ellen Gilbert, who has taught with Hilbie for the past 20 years, agreed.
“We teach from different methodologies, but we always make sure it’s about the kids being first. Is a decision good for the kids?” she said.
Hilbie teaches six classes a day, directs a band for each of the schools four grades, holds groups lessons, as well as holds practices for various other bands before school and at night. There’s no extra pay for that before- and after-school work.
“He loves this job. He lives it,” said Gilbert.
Then there’s the school’s 20-member jazz band, which plays 15 to 18 concerts a year in the community at locations such as Stone Ridge retirement community, Masonicare and the La Grua Center.
“At 2:40 my tank is drained. But it’s a lot of fun, he said.
So he goes home for while to recharge and then comes back at night for band practices.
“There’s no one that works harder than him,” Keith said. “I’ve taught with him and it’s been a privilege to be his principal.”
Hilbie’s meticulously detailed lesson plan book spells out what he want his students to accomplish in each block of each day of the school year.
“I know what I’m doing by now but I still prep each day,” he said.
That also goes for the college music education students who come to student teach with him each year.
“No one goes before my kids unless they have prepared,” he said. “I work them hard. That’s my gift back to the profession.”
Hilbie’s methods of teaching has been featured in an instructional DVD by GIA Publications and a Connecticut Public Television documentary entitled “Designing Minds, The Arts for Education.” For the past 22 years, he has presented “Teaching the National Standards Through Band Class” at conferences across the country.
He has earned teacher of the year honors in both Manchester and Stonington and been named the Connecticut Association of Schools middle level teacher of the year and the Connecticut Music Educators Association middle school music educator of the year. Awards won by his students line the walls of the large band room.
Hilbie said that he had made a pledge early on in his teaching career that he would retire on his own terms — when he felt he was still at the top of his game.
“As a teacher you have to be on all the time. If not, there’s no learning,” he said.
Hilbie praised both his students and their parents.
“There’s not been one day I ever came to school and said ‘Oh, no. I have to work with these kids today.’”
“We have a great community. These kids here are great. I work them hard. I hold them accountable. Just like I work myself hard and hold myself accountable.”
And it’s not unusual to see a few parent musicians sitting in with the bands as they practice.
One of the things Hilbie began doing for the families of his students in 2012 was to Skype, or now stream, a special concert so relatives across the country and overseas could watch his students perform. It began when a student’s grandmother who lived in France could not travel her to see a concert as she had in the past because she was recovering from a stroke.
So they Skyped the concert to her. Each year, the audience, which has ranged from Maine to Australia, has grown.
“We’ve played all over the world right from our own room,” he said.
Hilbie said his wife, Barbara, who is a second-grade teacher in Columbia, is retiring as well. He said he plans to travel with his wife, fish, do some volunteer work and possibly begin an early childhood music program.
Hilbie said he will leave his plans for his successor and will be willing to help that person if they wish. But he said he will keep some distance from the program so the new teacher can forge his or her own path.
“It will be different but different is not bad. Different is different,” he said.
“I don’t envy the person who has to replace him. It will be hard,” said Gilbert, who said Hilbie has shaped who she is as a person.
Beaming with admiration for his students, he put on a CD of one of the jazz band’s recent performances of a Bruno Mars song last week for a visitor. He couldn’t help but move with the music, which sounds as if it is being played by musicians much older.
“It was a great run, man,” he said.