Great Stories
Montana Campus Corps:
College Students Meeting Critical Community Needs
Music Can Work Magic by Sofia Tanberg

While serving as a Campus Corps volunteer in an elementary school music room (as part of my student teaching experience), I got the chance to work with the special needs population at the school. One 1st grade student in particular, “Tommy,” was absolutely a joy to teach. He has Down Syndrome, and is completely nonverbal, but his musical aptitude is astounding.
One day, we were playing a music game with his class that required quite a lot of spatial reasoning skills to perform correctly—the kids formed two “trains” that would wind around the room without colliding with each other, while singing a related song, and then at the end of the song, each train had to arrive at a “station” with a musical instrument that the “engine” student had to play a particular rhythm on. After that, the engine of each train got in line at the end of the other train, and became the “caboose.” Tommy didn't move quickly enough to be able to participate directly in the game without getting hurt by the other kids in their excitement, so he sat next to me at a barred instrument, and watched as I played an accompaniment to the song.
After just one time through the song, he picked up a mallet and began to play a steady beat on the bass note of the melody. He found the right note and the right beat without even being told what to do—a feat which many of the “normal” kids in his class would struggle with. So, very soon, I began to show him the accompaniment that I was playing, and within about 3 more iterations of the song, he was playing the steady beat in one hand, and a simplified version of the accompaniment with his other hand, which is definitely at least a 6th grade skill.
It was so awesome and rewarding to watch how quickly Tommy was able to understand and duplicate what I showed him, and the day was made all the better by the huge grin he gave me when he realized he was doing it so well. I am so grateful for the days like that one, when I get to witness a student having a breakthrough moment or excelling at something that they've never tried before. Their beaming smile is the best reward for the time I put in to teach them.

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