Terry Boyarsky

An Ohio Arts Council Arts Learning residency which took place over a month’s time on two campuses of the Hershey Montessori School.  The lower campus, in Concord, houses infants through 6th grade; the Farm School in Huntsburg, houses and boards 7-9th graders who I saw every Friday.  The 4th & 5th graders were my core group.  Peripheral groups were parent/infant group, toddlers, primary grades, early childhood, 6th graders, and adolescents.

The core group was studying Medieval history, so our music work centered around the Grand Staff, Gregorian chant, rhythmic modes, and an ancient Greek song/dance about Theseus, Ariadne and being lost in the maze.

One of our aims was to create an all-school repertoire, another was to help the current music teacher understand better how to reach all students and improve her teaching.  I worked with the adolescents to add songs to their graduation ceremony.

According to the Montessori philosophy, I did a lot of spontaneous teaching around the tone bars, helping teachers to understand how to better use the existing equipment, as well as engaging with the students by responding to their choices and skill levels.