Nat Hentoff has a nice one over at The Wall Street Journal about a group of second graders that have been dubbed “kids for Coltrane”.
Christine Passarella teaches at the Holliswood School, P.S. 178 in Jamaica Estates, Queens and has some progressive methods.
“I have worked on wonderful projects on artful thinking with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Children studied paintings not just about the artist and his style but to look at the relationships between the characters in the painting, and the setting. It’s a way of developing thoughtful dispositions.”
Passarella has her students for two years instead of one; a “looped” classroom. Along with her introspective study of paintings she has introduced the kids to some hip music, including Trane. And, guess what? The kids like Coltrane.
“the children were drawn to the range of feelings in the songs as I gave them the backgrounds of the compositions.
“‘Alabama,’ for example, was about Martin Luther King and racial discrimination; and while ‘My Own True Love’ concerned a man and a woman, John Coltrane’s ‘Love Supreme’ expressed a love for humanity.”
The kids have gone on to be active fund raisers for the John Coltrane Home project. The state purchased Coltrane’s Long Island house and is in the process of renovation.
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