CINCINNATI — As Ohio families return to school in whatever form that looks like, extra-curricular activities provide a vital taste of normal life. Cincinnati School of Music has spent spring fine-tuning its distance options to welcome students back this fall.
What You Need To Know
- Virtual music lessons allow students to resume learning, while keeping their distance
- Students say it’s an important return to their educational routine
- The Cincinnati School of Music said its been able to keep up with students who have moved away
Jordan Pollard is a longtime teacher with the music school and she said teaching the notes is the easy part, but reaching the students is the real challenge.
She’s been teaching Jack Rosen since he was about four years old.
“He was what I call an itty bitty when he first started and here we are six years later,” Pollard said.
Only, when his weekly lesson arrives, she’s the only person in her small studio. Jack is miles away in his home. The two connect through Zoom.
It’s been that way since March for many of the students at the Cincinnati School of Music.
“It was a sudden change,” Pollard said. “It was a lot to change in one fell swoop.”
Once she and her fellow teachers started getting a hang of distance teaching though, Pollard said they found students more than eager to keep learning however they could.
“Everything got threw into upheaval and having something scheduled when we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen was helpful to have something to work on over the course of a week was helpful,” she said.
Experts have linked music to education outcomes for years, claiming it helps children with language development and improving math skills. This year, however, students like Jack said the weekly lessons have a more important role.
“Music has kind of been my happy place like ever since I started,” he said. “If I stopped because of the pandemic that would just be I don’t know what I would do, because I love, I really do love playing piano.”
While many students have returned virtually, the Cincinnati School of Music is opening up some in-person lessons this fall.
Those are only one-on-one, require masks for instructors, and require strict cleanings before and after lessons.
Like in their lessons, though, the music school is encouraging students and their families to take things at their own pace.
Director Anna Backer said this has even allowed CSM to keep up with students who have moved away. Now, the school has out-of-state students and even a student in Germany.
“It’s really an individual student-to-student kind of setting goals on a weekly or monthly kind of basis depending on what we’re working on,” Pollard said.
For Jack, that means learning from home until the pandemic calms down.
For Pollard, it means making sure all her students no matter how they tune in can find their rhythm.
