June M. Hinckley Music Education Scholarship Essays

Haley submitted the following essay with her application for the June M. Hinckley Music Education Scholarship. It appears here with minor editing and the addition of a headline.

Music Is for Everyone

by Haley Fleischman June M. Hinckley Music Education Scholarship Recipient

CChoosing to pursue a future in music came naturally for me, as I have been drawn to music since the day I was born; but ultimately deciding to become a music educator was the result of the cumulative influence of my own exceptional music educators from my first week of kindergarten through my senior year of high school. I remember my first week of elementary school like it was yesterday. The building seemed so large, and I was anxious and afraid that nothing was going to make me like kindergarten ... until I entered Mrs. Becky Berry’s music classroom. I noticed all the instruments and music note stickers on the walls and instantly felt calm. Mrs. Berry welcomed us with her warm smile and bright singsong voice, and in that moment, I realized that kindergarten wouldn’t be so bad after all. I admired the way teaching music seemed to make her shine from the inside out. I found myself regularly imitating her at home, teaching my music class of stuffed animals. I was fortunate to have two equally incredible music educators during middle school. My band director, Mr. Nick Lenio, inspired me to conquer my young stage fright with his enthusiasm for performing in the community. I admired his natural way of conveying to his students that learning music in his class was to be taken seriously while still being fun. My youth bel canto choir director, Mrs. Katie Hone Wiltgen, was able to strike that important balance between recognizing hard work and talent, while making music accessible to all students interested in singing. I couldn’t help but want to practice and impress her.

My good fortune with amazing music teachers didn’t end there. It has continued through high school, where, for the last four years, I have had the privilege of singing under the incredible direction of Mr. Bradley Franks and Mrs. Tina Gill. Mr. Franks is the kind of director who notices when you have put in the effort to improve your singing skills. Nothing is more motivating than having an accomplished teacher like him acknowledge your hard work. Mrs. Gill, who is my private vocal coach in addition to my in-school director, has been one of my greatest musical inspirations. With a heart as big as her talent, she takes pride in each of her student’s accomplishments and has shown me by example just how rewarding teaching music to younger generations can be.

Music educators by nature are great people, and as a student, I certainly have had the luck of the draw.

Together, they have all inspired me to become a music educator. I got the chance a few summers ago to put these dreams to the test when I rose to a counselor position at the summer music camp where I had originally been a camper. I feel like I channeled a little bit of each of my teachers in this position, as I worked to gain my young campers’ respect and inspire them to learn and perform a medley of songs. It is my hope to continue to take a little bit of each of them with me as I major in general music education at Florida State University and begin my career as a music educator—perhaps one who inspires future music educators myself.

As a singer and a future music educator, I wholeheartedly believe that music should be available to all students. Good schools and teachers realize the importance of helping students grow not only academically, but also emotionally and socially. They understand the role of arts education, and particularly of music education, in nurturing students in all of these areas and in every grade level. Students in schools without a music program are, quite simply, receiving an incomplete education.

During elementary school, music can be academically beneficial in myriad ways. Early music activities such as learning a song with a simple repeating melody or repeating a rhythm with a collection of fun classroom percussion instruments builds pattern-recognition. From pattern-recognition, students learn to sequence and make predictions and later apply this to logic in math. Early music education also enhances the skills of sound recognition and the use of rhyme and rhythm, all of which contribute to the development of language and reasoning skills, and to reading and writing achievement.

Everyone knows how important memorization is in education, from second-grade social studies, to seventh-grade reading comprehension, to eleventh-grade SAT and ACT prep. Music helps memorization in the most obvious of ways—we tend to better remember information presented in the form of a song. During kindergarten, my elementary school music teacher taught my class to sing the 50 states in alphabetical order. This came in handy in my eighth-grade geography class, and today, I can still proudly recall (well ... sing) all 50 states alphabetically. Classroom teachers also utilize the power of music as a memory aid, such as my ninth-grade algebra teacher who taught my class the quadratic formula using the tune of the Addams Family theme song. I will definitely be sharing this musical mnemonic with my own children one day.

The social and emotional benefits of elementary music education are undeniable. And the benefits only continue for students who elect to be involved in music during middle and high school. In elementary school music classes, children are given a creative outlet and the opportunity to express themselves in ways that are not commonly practiced in the academic classroom, which naturally helps build their self-confidence. When music teachers introduce singing in a round (think “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”), students must work together within their groups to make sure they enter the round on time. This helps young children develop a sense of accomplishment and teamwork. All of these important skills carry over into other areas of a student’s life and into adulthood.

Middle school and high school can be a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences—making friends and losing friends, confidence and insecurity, successes and failures. Invariably, students who choose to take music classes during these years cite their involvement in these classes as the thing that got them through. They could turn to their instrument or their voice, as well as their music peers, many of whom became lifelong friends, in times of need. Their music classes and ensembles often became a second family, and their music teachers and directors became mentors and advocates. This has certainly been my experience, and for this, I will always be grateful.

There are so many more reasons why music should be available to all students—enough to write a never-ending book. For all of these reasons, I sincerely believe that an education without music is incomplete. Knowing that there are schools that lack music and other fine arts programs, where students are not getting the same academic, social, and emotional benefits as their peers in other schools, breaks my heart. As we begin to return to school following the pandemic, there are countless students who will need the comfort of music yet won’t have that opportunity. Within these schools, there may even be potential musicians deprived of the means to discover their passion and talent. As an elementary school music teacher, it will be my mission to ensure that all of my students get the full education they deserve—one that is full of musical, academic, social, and emotional growth, one that nurtures the discovery of their identities, and one that teaches them that music is for everyone.

Timothy submitted the following essay with his application for the June M. Hinckley Music Education Scholarship. It appears here with minor editing and the addition of a headline.

Love of Music for a Lifetime

by Timothy Schwindt June M. Hinckley Music Education Scholarship Recipient

AAs a young child, I was always surrounded by music because my father was a high school band director. As I got older, my love for music was nurtured through listening and learning about composers, music history, and the many different styles and approaches to music. When I joined the band in high school, I realized that it was so much more than just playing my instrument. It was the place where I was surrounded by true friends who supported one other and pushed each other to strive for excellence every day. My father had worked hard to create an environment where the band was more like a second family, and I want to build a program of my own that does the same. I want to be a high school music teacher because I want to inspire others to have fun making music each day and have a love for music that they can carry with them throughout their lives. One of the main reasons why I want to become a music teacher is because I believe that performing and listening to music can be a wonderful and fulfilling experience. The excitement that comes with listening to jazz, the saxophone soloist going crazy on the instrument, or the trumpets going screamin’ high, and feeling your body want to dance around from the excitement like you’re “too cool for school.” Or listening to RimskyKorsakov’s Scheherazade, hearing each instrument using its unique tone to create a new color to the music, and being able to see the pictures he was painting through his music. I look forward to having the opportunity to introduce these feelings to my future students and show them how incredible and fulfilling listening to music can be. I am also excited to teach young people about how music is put together and inspire them to look beyond the notes and rhythms and dig deeper to convey the intentions of the composer.

Music can also be very interesting and thoughtprovoking in the history that is behind each piece.

For example, a piece by Charles Mingus named Fables Faubus, written in 1957, was his way of criticizing Governor Orval Faubus for sending the National Guard into Little Rock Central High School to prevent African American children from entering an all-White school. The piece expresses his anger and disgust with the governor with its explicit lyrics of fear and the wailing of saxophones and trumpets. Another example would be Bolero by Ravel, being one of his most popular pieces of all time. Interestingly enough, Ravel himself hated the piece despite everyone’s praise of it because he thought it was too simple and any college student could write it. Finally, there is the composition Salvation is Created by Pavel Tschesnokoff, which was written for the Russian Orthodox Church in 1912. However, before he could hear it played, the Soviet Union outlawed the writing and performance of any religious music. Sadly, Tschesnokoff never got to hear his piece performed before he died, but thankfully it has survived, through the efforts of his family, and is still performed today. These fascinating stories about why the composers created these pieces, in addition to the sounds of the music, paint a vivid picture of what was happening in the world and how the people were feeling at the time each piece was written.

I believe that the opportunity to play music should be offered to all students because it could lead them to discovering their passion in life. Personally, I do not know where I would be today if I did not have the opportunity to be in a music class. Outside of my music classes, I cannot find a subject that piques my interests the same way. I have tried investing in other courses such as marine biology or forensic science, but neither leave me feeling as fulfilled as music. Schools should provide music to all students to give them the opportunity to explore new possibilities so that they can make a thoroughly thoughtout decision regarding their future plans.

In addition, I want to create a fun classroom that will help my students grow as individuals. Some of my best high school memories are from spending every day with my friends in a concert band. The moments of panic when you forgot a pencil and your friend hands you one, the excitement of getting that new piece where your section has all the solos, or the lighthearted jokes we make about each other when we make a silly mistake, not to mention the time spent together during marching season. The time we would spend yelling at the top of our lungs in the stands for no reason, the blasting of fight songs whenever our football team scores a touchdown, the songs we sing in stands, and the time spent in sectionals trying to learn our music or drill better.

Throughout the school year, my band director wanted us to be the best we could be while getting us fired up about making music and blessing our audiences with our talents. He celebrated our successes by being our biggest fan and nurtured our growth by teaching us how to work through the musical challenges that were laid before us. By teaching us how to achieve on our own, it made finally getting that hard, technical passage perfect so much more satisfying. Being in band showed us how to work as a team and to become better leaders as we got older. Whether it was through marching band leadership or sitting first chair in concert band, skills such as teamwork, perseverance, and tenacity are cultivated with each rehearsal and can reach far beyond the music classroom or marching band field. This is the kind of classroom environment that I want to recreate and also why I want to be a high school band director.

My ultimate goal is to be the type of band director who instills a passion for music that creates lifelong lovers and consumers of the arts, by introducing students to how fascinating the many different styles and genres of music can be, and by motivating them to be disciplined and to strive for excellence every day so they can achieve their personal and professional goals.