Sweet and Bitter Irony: Music From A Closed School

http://www.knightarts.org/community/akron/jazz-for-the-eyes

That could be the name of a song, or did someone already copyright that? Sweet and Bitter Irony: Music From A Closed School

Earlier today, and clearly in my summer "chill mode", I was enjoying a cup of coffee, resting under the foliage of a small tree, in my car when...a sound....a sweet sound....a soothing sound.....a saxophone sound!!

It didn't take long to realize that there was someone playing their sax somewhere near the shuttered George Pepper Middle School out in Southwest Philly.

The music was....mellow....soft....nice!
And in front of a school that likely did not have a vibrant music program in the years just preceding its closing. Unfortunately it's vibrant music and other arts programs that the majority of our schools wrongly settle without.

As a classroom teacher, I do appreciate music and the visual arts and do my best to incorporate them both into the 207 experience. But I have no issue with admitting that I don't have the extensive creative background or experience to make the most of integrating such media into the teaching and learning event.

Yes, Sweet and Bitter Irony indeed!! That such beautiful music now IS and, then too, from the outside of the school!



Pictures of Pepper - http://www.schoolclosingcollective.com/?q=node/12
One account of Pepper's history - http://hiddencityphila.org/2013/04/final-bell-nears-at-brutalist-southwest-philly-middle-school/