'It brings joy': MPS partners with Wisconsin Conservatory of Music to offer adaptive drumming class
Drumming class helps kids with special needs Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Every other week, Javon Glass goes to his school’s music room and trades his walking stick for a drumstick.
Glass, 14, is a percussion student at Frederick J. Gaenslen School and is visually impaired.
He’s one of 14 other students in the room taking a new drumming class, partnered with the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
The conservatory started the drumming program last January at Gaenslen, an elementary school designed to meet the needs of students with physical and other special needs.
The music class serves students in grades four to eight with adaptive needs, such as hearing impairment, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities and physical disabilities. The program is funded by the MPS Foundation.
Students with specific special needs "would not have music at MPS without this program," said Wendell Willis, executive director of the MPS Foundation.
That’s true. While Gaenslen does have a music teacher, the teacher has been out on personal leave for most of the academic year.
The drumming class is taught by Mitch Shiner, percussion faculty at the conservatory. He said students with special needs often work individually with teachers, and this class is a chance to work together.
“When the kids figure out how to play together and find their groove center, there is such a high in the room,” Shiner said.
Along with Shiner, Julie Hapeman, a certified orientation and mobility specialist at MPS, worked with Glass and other students who have visual impairments.
“(This class) has really tapped into his love of music,” Hapeman said. “It’s allowed him to learn these types of instruments, which he really has to feel to know what it is.”
“It brings joy,” Glass said.
The drums the class used are called bahia and surdo. Bahia has a lower resonance, which allows students with hearing impairment to feel the vibrations of the instrument. Surdo is a louder drum that Glass said he liked because “it vibrates the whole floor.”
The class also used instruments called cajon, shekere, tubano and cabasa.
Glass is graduating from Gaenslen this year and will not be eligible to participate in its music program next year. However, he said he wants to keep playing music at his high school.
“I want to learn all the different types of music in the world,” Glass said.
The conservatory will continue to teach adaptive learning courses this summer, partnered with MPS Extended Learning Opportunities. These classes will be offered to students grades K-5 with special needs. Programs are free for MPS students through the MPS Extended School Year program. Classes are at Clement Avenue School, Congress School and Gaenslen School.
The conservatory also provides music instruction to other institutions, including churches, public libraries and senior centers. The conservatory has 94 partner sites in Wisconsin, 33 of which are at MPS locations.
Willis said the MPS Foundation is currently reviewing the class to determine if it will receive funding for the next academic year.
At the end of the class, Shiner instructed the students through a series of drum rolls.
“At the end of a super-long, sweat-dripping drum session, you always end it with a drum roll,” Shiner said. “Because there’s always a little bit more.”