An Interview With John Flora Jayson Martinez Arts High School, Newark jmarti37@webmail.essex.edu
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t is my pleasure to interview John Flora for our October issue of TEMPO. As a music teacher for the Jersey City Public Schools, John has garnered countless awards and recognitions in his fifteen year tenure. Morever, he is also running for Congress NJ-10, a district which includes Jersey City, Newark, West Orange, and Montclair. Enjoy! 1) Please tell us about your own personal musical background growing up and your collegiate experience? Growing up with a father who is a blues guitarist and a stepdad who could play the piano and accordion proficiently, it was difficult not to be lured in by the sonorous sounds that they regularly provided. Surprisingly, I chose the scholar-athlete route all the way up until my first year in college. But that is when music saved me...literally. It was during this soul-searching first year of college that I fully realized the effect that music has over human emotions. A Frederic Chopin nocturne in a music appreciation class in Hudson County Community College is to blame for helping me to realize my true calling. A few short years later at New Jersey City University, Ana María Rosado (who is retiring after this year) was instilling the theory and technique which inevitably led to my lasting respect for the classical guitar. Before graduating with a B.A. in Music Education, I also would serve as the MENC Chapter President. 2) What schools have you worked in and tell us about your overall music program? To date, I’ve been employed with the Jersey City Public Schools for fifteen years. When I was first hired in the district, my time was split between several schools (PS#6, PS#38, & PS#42). In this role, I taught pre-K-8 general music, middle school chorus, and elementary school concert band. But it wasn’t until my fourth year that I was assigned to full-time duties at a brand new middle
school, Franklin L. Williams Middle School #7. Over the past eleven years in this building, I’ve taught middle school students general music. The curriculum I utilize is derived from “Modern Band” and exposes students to the guitar (acoustic and electric), bass, keyboard, drums, and singing. The “Little Kids Rock” organization has been instrumental in providing these free instruments, teacher training, and countless performance opportunities for students over the years. With their pedagogical approach, I am able to infuse theory, improvisation, and composition into my instruction. The emphasis, however, is always on experiencing music with students before explaining it to them. At MS#7, after-school programs have ranged from guitar ensembles to performance-based modern bands and traditional choirs. 3) What obstacles did you face when you were first hired at your school? In addition to the obvious logistical challenges of sharing a classroom with another full-time teacher, the main obstacle was assessing the new student body’s musical interests and establishing new after school programs. Many of the students entering our middle school had no prior experience playing an instrument. Seeing that there wasn’t a single feeder program to our school, the students’ levels of musical experience were also very disparate. Making the situation even more challenging was that a high concentration of the students who transferred into our building were acclimating to the United States as newly arrived immigrants. 4) What kind of classes related to the guitar do you teach? Approximately five-hundred students annually are exposed to introductory guitar lessons for a four-week module during general music classes. This includes basic technique and identifying parts of the guitar. Typically, I’ll work with more advanced players before the school
TEMPO 58
OCTOBER 2019
