THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 20, 1995 TAG: 9503180041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
IN THE POWERFUL final moments of the 1977 movie classic ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' pulsating musical notes bridge the communication gap between humans and alien beings.
That goes to show, teacher Connie Soles told a group of fourth-graders recently, that music truly is a universal language, cutting across cultures, countries and maybe even space.
``If there's any way we're ever going to communicate with aliens, I guarantee you it will be through music,'' said Soles, who hosts a twice-weekly, interactive-learning program on the Hampton school system's cable television station, Channel 5.
For now, though, Soles is content to explore a new frontier in educating children. Her approach unites music, computers and television technology to reach a generation of kids reared on MTV and Nintendo games.
She calls her copyrighted program ``Music, Macs and MIDI.'' With it, she uses music as a catalyst to cross traditional subject boundaries, merging song with language arts, science, social studies and math.
Soles, a 27-year teaching veteran, describes the program as a ``whole learning'' system, for which music is ``the engine that drives the machine.'' It works for academically gifted children as well as for kids with learning disabilities, she said.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, about 100 fourth-grade students at five schools tune in to Soles' broadcast and follow along with her and the kids in the TV studio.
By the end of the experimental, 12-week course, the students - many of whom had never heard of a quarter-note or the key of ``C'' - are expected to write poems and set them to music using a keyboard synthesizer and music-writing computer software.
Their verse is based on themes in the book ``Sarah, Plain and Tall,'' required reading in the course. First, the kids write their poems on computers. Then they tap out notes on the keyboard and score the melody line with the aid of computer software. After that, all they do is make a printout of their song.
``This is a new approach to getting children to read and write,'' said Soles, an irrepressible soul who often breaks into song to express her thoughts, her Gemini ``inner child'' bursting forth, she says.
``What's wrong now is that the children we're educating are all TV, video, Nintendo, Sega Genesis babies,'' Soles said. ``We cannot expect them to learn the same way we did. The traditional educational system is just not working, so what I've done is to capture two things children love most - computers and television.''
In April, Soles plans to travel to Russia with a group of U.S. educators who will demonstrate teaching techniques used in this country. Soles said she was invited to make the trip after giving a presentation at an International Distance Learning Conference last year in Washington.
``What we're trying to do is to show public education at its best from the U.S. and show it to gifted Russian students and their teachers,'' Soles said.
Her goal is to set up computer Internet accounts so that children could exchange music files on the information highway.
Critics who might worry that kids could be shortchanged intellectually by a teaching method that replaces traditional skill-and-drill techniques with slick computer savvy and instant results are missing the point, proponents contend.
``If kids aren't computer literate, we're not educating them for the 21st century,'' Soles said. ``Instead of the haves and haves not, it's going to be the computer literate and the computer illiterate.''
Anthony L. Woods, principal of Robert R. Moton Elementary in Hampton, said children are consumers of a popular culture society has created and that the schools must tap into it to reach kids of this generation.
Music, he noted, is one of the seven ``intelligences'' identified by Harvard education professor Howard Gardner. Gardner's theory describes how children draw on different ``intelligences'' to learn, and teachers can use that knowledge to design strategies to help students succeed in school.
``People who are over 40 may not see a need for it, but you've got to deal with children where they are,'' Woods said of Coles' program. ``You see their interest in that media and you've got to channel that and take advantage of it. It has a place as long as it doesn't become a passive activity.''
Passive? No way, say teachers and children.
They work on Macintosh computers and 20 synthesizers purchased by the school system - thus the ``Music and Macs'' in the program's name. The ``MIDI'' part is an acronym for musical instrument digital interface, a piece of computer hardware that allows a computer and synthesizer to ``talk'' to each other.
``I think the idea is one that definitely turns on children not only to reading but to creative thinking,'' said Marilyn May, whose fourth-grade class at Capt. John Smith Elementary was chosen to take part.
Only in their second week of the curriculum, May's students already have composed poems and are eager to learn how to combine them with music.
``I like it because it's fun, and maybe one day I can make music videos,'' said one of May's students, Porsha Marshall, 10. ``You can play on the keyboard and connect it with the computer. It helps you on your music and your writing skills.''
Merrimack Elementary fourth-grader Samantha Archey, 10, who is learning to play the violin, said the program has enabled her to progress more rapidly than the old method of transcribing notes by hand on score sheets.
``It's easier and faster,'' she said. ``We can learn more.''
On a recent show, Soles had as a guest Vera Rathkamp, an 84-year-old music teacher who had no reservations about the new technology.
``This is a television generation and the children are used to working with what they're seeing instantly,'' Rathkamp said. ``This saves hours and hours of development time and it's much more exciting. Once you get children excited, there's no limit to what they can do.''
Soles, who in college majored in voice and minored in piano, hopes to broadcast her program internationally via satellite.
But for now, as Hampton school officials look for ways to trim the budget, she faces a local fight to keep the show on the air. If the program is cut, she would have the option of offering it on site to single classrooms, Hampton officials said.
Last year, six school districts in the region tapped into Soles' show in a pilot project financed by the state Department of Education and beamed over the Virginia Satellite Educational Network. Soles lost the state funding this year because of budget cuts.
Hampton officials say several school districts have voiced interest in providing the financial backing needed to keep the program on the air and expand it. Soles is keeping her fingers crossed, convinced of the benefits to children.
``I have never been so happy professionally because I see before my eyes transformation,'' Soles said. ``Music motivates everything. It's the most powerful tool in the educational arsenal, but it's constantly a fight to make other educators and administrators recognize this. This puts music in the mainstream, where it belongs.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Hampton teacher Connie Soles unites music, computers and TV
technology to reach kids. Here she teaches, from left, Samuel
Vazyuez, 9, Samantha Archey, 10, and teacher Vera Rathkamp, 84.
KEYWORDS: EDUCATION MUSIC TEACHER by CNB