East shop students make beautiful music
Teacher beats drum to do well and do good
By Lisa Ryckman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 8, 2008 at 3:34 p.m.
Photo by Matt Mcclain / The Rocky
Drying violins hang from the ceiling of Joel Noble's East High classroom. At center, Alex Farwell, 17, picks up a guitar he's building for another of Noble's classes.
Photo by Matt Mcclain / The Rocky
Adele Vrooman, 15, right, polishes a violin she built in Joel Noble's woodworking class at East High School. Student-made violins and drums will be given to Bill Roberts School at Stapleton.
The smell of sawdust drifts down the hall outside Joel Noble's East High School classroom, where the day's lesson is fashioned from wood and good will.
His students sand, glue and polish, putting final touches on a project that's been going on all year. Forget about birdhouses and bread boxes: Noble's students are making the means to make music - a pile of violins and a corner full of drums.
What goes on here goes out the door in a week, when Noble's woodworking classes hand over the instruments to children at the Bill Roberts School, a new kindergarten through eighth-grade school on the edge of Stapleton.
"It's nice for the kids to build stuff for themselves," Noble said, "but I wanted us to do something that would really impact the community."
Wood shop classes have gone the way of the dinosaur: Noble said his is one of only a few left in Denver Public Schools. That makes it even more imperative that they do something useful, he said, and helping out a music program - another victim of budget cuts - makes perfect sense.
Building instruments has long been a passion for Noble, who began making guitars while a student at East in the 1980s. For seven years, building electric and acoustic guitars has been part of his curriculum, but this is the first time his students have tackled violins and drums.
Lowe's supplied a $5,000 grant and Kolacny Music supplied a violin for comparison purposes and has been consulting about the new violins to make sure they're ready to be put in small hands.
"I think it's actually really cool, helping out some little kids," said student Jason Laub. "If I made something, it would just sit in my house and I wouldn't use it at all. This is going to get used."
Some of the violins had to be cut and built, while others came in kits, semi-constructed but still in need of fingerboard, chin rest, tuning pegs and strings. Some have gotten a coating of blond or mahogany varnish and now dangle from a line like laundry.
"It's an interesting process because I don't play violin, and I've never built one before," said Noble, who also teaches architecture, civil engineering and design.
He gathers his students in the shop to talk about the next step, the intricacies of lining up the sound post, which has to be carefully inserted inside the violin.
Patient and encouraging, Noble brings a new dimension to wood shop by incorporating math, history and English into student projects, said Megan Wernig, an educational interpreter who works with hearing- impaired students in his class.
"He goes way above and beyond," she said. "And he takes time out to talk to them about being the right kind of person and doing the right thing. I really admire what he does. And how much he does."
Adele Vrooman, one of four girls in the class, still has the game, the gumball machine and the letter holder she made in woodworking class at Morey Middle School. But she has no problem giving away what might be the best thing she's ever made.
"We're doing it for a really good cause," she said.
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May 9, 2008
7:33 a.m.
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vudumom writes:
That is a great idea! Finally a teacher that thinks outside the box and is teaching students he doesn't even know. Wonderful!
May 9, 2008
8:06 a.m.
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farsidefan writes:
Sorry, but there are a lot of public school teachers who think outside the box.
I bought a house in the 70's that was totally built by a schools' industrial arts program, math class and economics class. It was a public high school in Colorado.
This kind of stuff happens more than publicized. Most teachers don't care for the PR, they just want to teach kids.
Is East a private school ? A charter school ? Geez, how can this possible be done at a pathetic public high school.
Seems to me that this is the second article about the terrific students at East High in less than a week.
May 9, 2008
8:20 a.m.
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Scott writes:
Thank you for this beautiful story. It brought back a lot of memories for me about the shop courses I took in Junior High and Senior High. Years down the road these kids will look back on this with fond memories. It's too darn bad that the education racket has cancelled so many shop courses. As the article points out, shop courses combine many of the academic skills.
Scott
May 9, 2008
2:18 p.m.
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musicman80 writes:
East High School is a public high school near downtown that has had its share of negative media.
It's awesome to know that teachers are making a difference in their own students' lives while making a difference in other students' lives.
Lisa, thanks for the story!
May 9, 2008
6:36 p.m.
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stella writes:
It's so nice to see a positive DPS story. There are lots of similar stories throughout our schools. Too bad the negatives tend to be the overwhelming choice of the media.
For every "THIS IS AN AMAZING DPS CHARTER SCHOOL" story, I would like to see equal time given to the straight-up, non-charter schools that are doing an equally good job.