Rocking it Old School
Some months ago, my friend Sarah and I were talking about children’s education in these days of excess. We both were yearning for a simpler time, a time when the walls were orange and the carpet was brown. “Where are the ponchos?” Sarah said. “I miss the ponchos.” Although ponchos are not required dress at the Church Street School of Music and Art in Lower Manhattan, they might as well be. This school is Old School. The school’s director, Lisa Ecklund-Flores, teaches a music class for toddlers and parents in which she plays acoustic guitar and piano and the children sing along and move interpretively to the music – fast piano trills for running, slow and ponderous chords for big steps. Like the music class you took when you were a kid. This method, formally known as the Dalcroze method, fosters a real connection and love of music. And more, it’s what you grew up with. The art staff, including our daughter’s excellent teacher Anna Adler, guides children towards an individual relationship with the materials at hand. “Let them experience it themselves,” they say. In the case of our daughter, this involves a lot of eating of paint. But the stuff she comes home with is beautiful. Touch the material, love the art. As Sarah and I termed it, it’s poncho-based education.
By Claude
