Margo is a staff writer for the Florida Sun Sentinal. This article was brought to our attention by Dan Fyffe of Franklin Central H.S. and we were granted permission by Ms. Harakas to "reprint" her article on our site. We appreciate her generosity in allowing us to bring it to you...

Publication Date: Monday, May 8, 2000

Heart Beats:

"If we were in an African village," James Mader tells the students as they sand down the drumsticks, "I'd be telling you about the right tree to find and how to scrape off the bark. I'd show you how to whittle pegs, and we'd talk about what skins to use for which drums."

But they're not in Africa, they're at Parkway Middle School of the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, so they sand cut dowels and listen to a cultural lesson till the sanding is done, and then it's bom, bom, bombabompa and a chinka-chink-chink. And a boom, and a chasshachasshachassha, bing, bing, bingbingbingbingbing. The vibrations are felt in the walls and the floor and in the hall outside, and in the band room next door where the horns are playing, and around the corner where the dancers are dancing, and Mader's kids know that all of them, all of them outside, want to be in here, bam-bam-bamming in the "village."

It's called World Music Drumming, and in this magnet school for the performing arts, non-magnet students have an art that's all their own, one that hopefully and ultimately will keep them in school and one that, according to their own accounts, is making many of them better students. "It's helped me not get into trouble anymore," says Terrance Horne, 13, a big kid with a winsome smile. Wilfred Vera, 13, echoes the words. "If I get angry, I can just hit the drums. It makes me feel comfortable," he says. Vera also discovered, as others have, that the discipline needed to produce good music can be applied to other studies as well. "I used to get Fs in math," he says. "Now, I'm making Cs and I hope next time to have an A or B. Before, I used to play around a lot and wouldn't pay attention."

Such reports make Mader, a short, enthusiastic man with blond-tipped hair, grin like a child with an Eskimo Pie. The admissions confirm that the lessons are taking. "It's not about notes," says Mader, trying to explain the teaching of this alternative music curriculum that he helped to pioneer in a pilot program three years ago. "It's about teamwork. It's about focus and concentration and listening and cooperation and respect, for yourself and others. That's why music is in the schools. It's not about the shiny instruments."

Indeed, taped to the walls of the classroom are signs declaring in shrieking high letters "Team Work." "Respect." "Listen." "No Excuses." Stacked in the center of the room are the instruments: guiros, gankoguis, congas, dunduns, agogo bells. Fabricated from wood, skins and gourds, the instruments, like most of the children, trace their ancestry to Africa, the Caribbean and South America. Mader meets with 140 students a day in five classes, kids who for the most part don't want to take band or orchestra and have been designated at risk of dropping out. He also has students who probably couldn't function in regular band classes. "I had a girl with severe Down syndrome. The group knew we had to help this girl, that our ensemble wasn't going to sound good till she got it. They learned how important she is to our village." How important each and every one is to the other. That sense of support and encouragement is further implied in the term "village," which Mader prefers to the often more competitive "class."

Music's roots:

With the ring of the school bell, the young drummers flood into the classroom. Choosing an instrument from the assortment on the floor, they quickly take a seat in a semicircle facing Mader. Mader beats out a question on the talking drums, and each kid in turn answers with his own improvised drum beat. Mader lays down a complicated echo pattern, the kids skillfully replicate it. He then calls for a response, and the young musicians with flair and flourish slap out a rhythm that challenges the others. Another day, Mader breaks the class into groups. "You have 10 minutes to create your own ensemble with a samba feeling. We'll record it," he tells them. He then reminds his young drummers of that thing called rhythm compliments. "Leave space for others. Play different patterns. Play in the holes. Play above or below. Play different tone colors." They seem unfazed by the challenge. Often, students will bring in new songs from their native countries to teach to their fellow drummers. "We work on Caribbean, African and South American ensembles, and we study the cultures from which the music comes," Mader says. But it doesn't stop there. He also traces the traditional influences in classical and popular music. "We'll be working on a rhythm that's 100 years old, and someone will start singing a popular rap song," he says. The kids thus recognize the roots of the modern in the old.

Lessons in coping:

Mader is one of 20 teachers in the United States and Canada who three years ago participated in a pilot project to test the World Music Drumming program developed by Will Schmid of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. "He wrote this program to bring excitement to general music classes. For so long, the general music classes were only about listening to music, doing work sheets on composers. Everything but playing and making music." At that time, Mader was a traditional band instructor at Lauderdale Lakes Middle School. He took the curriculum training for this new-concept drumming and dove right in. The feedback from the pilot teachers was impressive. Regardless of the demographics of the individual schools, students became better learners and better human beings as a result of the curriculum, says Mader. "They became more respectful of each other and of different cultures." Mader became an immediate convert. "It changed my outlook on teaching," he says. "I was getting burned out and this curriculum saved me. It kept me in the business and kept me happy. It made me want to come to school each day." It enabled him, he says, to reach students in a new way, many of whom were impossible to reach before. Two years ago, Mader brought the program to Parkway, making it the only school in Broward County to offer the curriculum. About the same time, Paul Corbiere introduced a less intensive drumming program at Starlight Cove Elementary in Lantana. "James sees his kids every day. I have mine once a week," Corbiere explains.

With guidance counselor Mike Kane, Corbiere also put together a group called Beat for Peace, consisting of "25 students who have been identified as high-risk or at-risk students. We can see that the program has helped them cope with some of their challenges," Corbiere says. One boy who would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation is losing his temper less frequently these days. "And he's easier to get back together," says Corbiere. "Before he'd be off his rocker for the entire day. Now he gets focused more quickly. He has a sense of belonging. It's helped his self-esteem. Half of the group is in there for self-esteem issues." Success in the class, coupled with the enthusiastic response to their public performances, has given the young drummers a sense of pride. Beyond that, says Corbiere, the most important concept learned is the value of paying attention.

Lessons in listening: