How Keep The Beat Campaign and Dream Corp Drums came to be…
Last school year prior to Hazlet redistricting I was the Instrumental music teacher at Lillian Drive School and Cove Road School. I taught fourth grade beginners and fifth and sixth great instrumental lessons and band. Also, several years ago I created a marching band which was well received by students and the community. For this reason I reinstated it last year.
My current teaching assignment is now full time teaching fifth and sixth grade instrumental music at Cove Road School. In preparation for the 2009/2010 school year, I do preliminary planning during the summer. As I was thinking about my new teaching assignment coming up in September I knew I wanted to continue with Marching Band. Much to my surprise when school began I had one hundred students who had signed up for my band program.
The real surprise came when I realized I had 32 drummers!
Well, I had six marching band drums, 2 crash cymbals, and an array of small rhythm instruments; not nearly enough for 32 drummers. I really thought that my marching band was over because I could not see myself selecting only certain drummers to participate and not others.
That’s when one night this past September I had a haunting dream. I needed to find a way to get drums for my 32 drummers. One night while dreaming, it came to me – Buckets. I woke up and started to sketch out visions of my dream. “Dream Corp Drums” had started to take on life.
I went to Lowes and Home Depot and started looking for all types of buckets metal and plastic with sticks in hand I banged and tapped every bucket I could find. Finally I bought a variety of plastic buckets and started to designed my new marching band drums. Realizing the amount of time this would take and knowing the importance of having ownership in a project, I decided to form a Band Parent Organization to help assist me with one hundred fifth and sixth graders at concerts and for supervision. I held my first meeting and was happy to see 30 parents attend. I decided to share my dream with the parents that night and it began.
One of my parents, Mr. Freund, comes back to see me the next week with an idea to connect 2 buckets with rope. We kept at it and continued to tweek and redesign my dream. At last a durable practical drum was ready for mass assembly. As the drums were being built so was the enthusiasm among both students and parents. The students didn’t want to miss out on this exciting time so they were motivated to keep up with their studies. Parent involvement flourished as they realized how cost effective this worthwhile project was. They were amazed by the variety of student skills being addressed. Even more thrilling were the looks of astonishment on the student’s face when they discovered they were actually developing their own cadences.
Dreams do come true - “Dream Corp Drums” is now a reality
Mike Hernandez (The Bucket Man)
Music Teacher, Hazlet, NJ
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