A curve on learning

Southern Living, Mar 1997 by Butler, Wanda

Did your three Rs stand for repetition, recitation, and restlessness? Today some fortunate kids explode with excitement over innovative teaching that tickles their fancies-and their imaginations.

We begin in Charleston, South Carolina, where, outside the cinder block walls of the music room, a light drizzle washes the sky. A sleepy mood seeps in, making this class of about 20 sixth graders at Morningside Middle School somber, even though it's Friday.

Robert Jones saunters in, sets his guitar case down, and rallies the kids to attention. "Why are we here?" he demands. "To sing and play the blues," they reply in military unison. "What are the blues?"

"The facts of life!" they yell back.

"Why are the blues so important?"

"They are our history, our culture, and the roots of American music!" Robert's radio-smooth voice snaps the youngsters out of their morning funk, and all eyes follow as he moves in front of them. He has opened class this way each day for a week, and today marks the students' graduation from their intro course to the blues.

Thanks to Charleston's Blues in the Schools program, professional musicians such as Robert visit with local middle schools throughout the year to teach kids the fundamentals of this uniquely American-and very Southern-tradition. The class at Morningside is an outreach project, an offshoot of the main fourweek curriculum that culminates an intense schedule of after-school practices with performances at community festivals and events.

"In a week, we're not going to turn these kids into virtuosos," admits Robert, who was recruited for the program from Detroit, where he lives and performs. "But that's not the point. I want to get them thinking, thinking about images and metaphors and life." Even with this appetizer class, the theory seems to work. Sleepy students sit up straight; others who are usually lax with their homework have been bringing in their own songs. And after five short days, the blue cardboard boxes that cradle their silver harmonicas look war torn from use.

"We wanted to take the kids from these schools, the ones who are at most risk for falling into trouble, and give them an incentive to stay out of it," says Mary Feldman, Blues in the Schools cofounder and executive director.

The program started in 1991, when Mary and her business partner, R. H. Friedberg, noticed that students suspended from Rivers Middle School (which neighbors their offices at King Street Palace, a music venue) spent their time off by the dumpsters in the parking lot. Mary had read about a music program in Chicago that introduced blues artists into inner- city schools. Teens interview for participation on the condition that both grades and attendance remain high. (To page 152) Would the idea play well down South? It has. More than 3,000 kids have taken part already, each learning to wield a mean mouth organ and to translate their adolescent woes and joys into lyrics.

In a time when public schools are cutting back their arts curricula, Mary finds the majority of her $150,000 budget from corporations such as Pepsi and Home Depot, as well as from the local school systems and local governments. And thanks to them, the program's future doesn't look so, well, blue.

Back in Robert's sixth-grade classroom, the students take turns singing the songs that they've composed. The marriage of their enthusiastic noise-making and soul-baring seems so wonderfully-and painfully-prepubescent.

Marquez Holmes, a tiny fellow who's been reserved up till now, shyly takes the stage. Robert pulls him out of silence with a hungry harmonica riff. The boy takes off.

"I woke up this morn-ing, was as happy as could be/ Was crazy in love and could afford no jeal-ous-y/ I got the blues, baby! Oh yeah, I got the blues/ I got the `my girl done left me, and I'm so all alone blues' . . ."

The class goes crazy, punctuating his lines with "dahduhn-dah-dahs." And Marquez beams. "I just moved here, and I miss my old friends," he says later. "So I wrote the song thinking about them."

Before Marquez leaves, Robert gives him his Detroit address, telling him to keep in touch. Marquez smiles broadly-honored to be singled out. And even though his "girl done left" him, his friends are far away, and four more classes stand between the youngster and the rainy weekend, you can tell that Marquez is feeling the blues in only the best way.

For details on Blues in the Schools, call (803) 723-0808. Melissa Bigner In New Orleans, Doug Brinkley's mind isn't on the blues but on the best way to reach a different set of students. "Everyone says Generation X is apathetic," he says, bright eyes glowing with firebrand enthusiasm. "But they just need stimulus."

This 36-year-old history professor from the University of New Orleans knows just how to ignite the passion for learning. Yes, he still gives lectures and exams to the college crowd, but he also provides high schoolers the chance to board his Majic Bus. For two weeks a year, Doug literally puts a classroom on wheels, taking a crew of select students across America to see and experience the stuff of our history. Bo Diddley playing guitar in the French Quarter.