An instructor in the Cooperstown, New York area has found a way to bring one of his passions to his Middle School classes.
Jonathan Chase has told his Edmeston Central School students he'd like them understand song lyrics, then draw connections between these and recent history.
The Social Studies pupils have responded.
Kori Hamm, who is in Chase’s eighth-grade class, did a project commemorating the life of Rosa Parks, the late civil-rights leader. With the help of her father, she built a wooden bus — a replica of the one in Montgomery, Ala., where Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955.
And to illustrate Parks’ life musically, Kori chose the U2 song Where the Streets Have No Name, which begins: "I want to run; I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. I want to reach out and touch the flame, where the streets have no name."
"The project was fun to do and when I was doing my research, I did learn a lot about those times," Kori said.
The U2 song seems to help explain how Parks might have felt when confronted with injustice, she said.
Chase’s classes have also been making memorials to famous people since 2002, and the works are posted on the Internet at http://www.learningfromlyrics.org/gallery.htm.
Some of the student’s choices of melodies are naturally associated with their historical figures. The song chosen from the memorial to Princess Diana is Elton’s Candle In the Wind, rewritten for her.
For Jimi Hendrix, the song is The Star-Spangled Banner, no doubt the version Hendrix made famous.
For other figures, the connections are less obvious but no less valid, Chase said. For example, Amelia Earhart is represented by Michael Bolton’s Go The Distance.
"I’m continually impressed by what the students have come up with," he said.
