A group of Arlington Elementary third-graders gathered outside their school Tuesday to learn something they wouldn’t typically learn in music class – American Indian hoop dance.Mike Horan has been in Akron, Ohio, for six of the past 14 days hitting pans.
He uses hammers of different weights to hit each note, learning how hard to smack and where on the pan provides the best sound.
It took eight hours each of the first three days for Horan to scratch the surface of how to tune a steel-pan drum.
Horan, 55, is no novice. He’s the music teacher at Kekionga Middle School, which is known for its steel-drum band, and just returned from a nearly two-week trip to Trinidad to learn the history of steel-pan drums and meet the people who make the instrument.
This has all been courtesy of the Lilly Endowment, which awarded Horan an $8,000 Teacher Creativity Fellowship.
He and 128 other Indiana educators received the money to allow them to pursue subjects that interest them and take a rejuvenating trip to ultimately make them better teachers.
Nine Hoosier educators received up to $25,000 for the ideas they proposed, and the remaining 120 received up to $8,000.
Fifteen of the $8,000 winners and one $25,000 winner are from schools in northeast Indiana.
“We never cease to be delighted at the response to this popular program,” said Sara B. Cobb, Endowment vice president for education, in a written statement.
“Among other things, good teaching also requires a high degree of energy and motivation. We regularly hear that these renewal experiences have helped hard-working Indiana educators regain their enthusiasm for their profession.”
Lilly Endowment is a private philanthropic organization based in Indianapolis and founded in 1937.
Lilly’s fellowships will allow northeast Indiana teachers to travel everywhere from Virginia to Canada to Oregon to Tibet to Italy among other activities this summer.
Mike Caywood, principal of Holland Elementary School, is currently in North Carolina with his family visiting three Vietnam memorials.
He’ll leave July 20 on the second leg of his journey and take a train that mirrors the route his troop took during the Vietnam War from Fort Riley, Kan., to Oakland, Calif., before shipping out to Asia.
Caywood, 63, will then reconnect with some old military friends in Portland, Ore. The Fort Wayne Community Schools principal will bring back pictures and work with his school’s music teacher about incorporating a Vietnam War segment into Holland’s annual Veterans Day program.
Woodside Middle School Principal Jerry Schillinger, 46, also has plans to share his journey with his students. Schillinger and his family leave Saturday for a four-day bike trip along Lake Michigan between Petoskey and Harbor Springs, Mich.
“We used to do this when I was younger, and it was so much fun to get outside and get the exercise and put everything behind you, and I really wanted my kids and my family to experience it once,” said Schillinger, whose children are ages 19, 17 and 14.
“Right now they’re a little reluctant. They’re not sure if they want to be without their cell phones and their buddies.”
Schillinger will leave on the second portion of his trip at the beginning of August, when he and seven others will bike for one week along Lake Superior.
Lilly allows administrators to use the fellowship money over two years so next year, Schillinger will bike along Lake Ontario.
He’ll track his trips on a GPS and share the map and photos with his students, in hopes of encouraging exercise in their lives.
“Hopefully it’ll show the kids there’s some fun to be had outdoors,” Schillinger said.
