In the music classroom at Indian Creek High School, the popular sounds from a “Charlie Brown Christmas” filled the hallway.
Band students coached special education students on how to hold and play instruments and how to play the notes of the Christmas songs they were learning for an upcoming concert.
For an hour a week, the special education students were a member of the school’s band and were able to play instruments and play music like every other band student in the school.
Indian Creek High School is one of a few schools in Indiana to be enrolled in the United Sound program. United Sound is a peer-mentor-based music program that encourages schools to offer or expand their music curriculum to special education students. The students at Indian Creek recently joined Michigan State University on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium during a break during Bands of America.
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About 17 band students and a dozen special education students meet for about an hour a week to learn the music. The program started at the end of the last school year, with this semester being the first full semester of Indian Creek’s involvement in the program, music teacher Amy Heavilin said.
Special education teachers and other teachers in the building are always looking for ways to be able to get special education students involved with the general population of the school, making United Sound a good fit for Indian Creek, Heavilin said.
“Kids are kids, it doesn’t matter their abilities, students can do anything in an environment where they feel they can grow,” she said.
Every student deserves to be able to play music and to be able to integrate and take the classes they want, she said.
“You don’t know what students can do until you open up a world of opportunity for them,” she said.
Life skills teachers are always looking for ways to give their students opportunities that will integrate them into school more, life skills teacher Scott Wilkerson said.
Finding ways to give special education students connections to the larger school population opens opportunities for them, he said.
“It gives them that breathe in the day, they get to have fun,” Wilkerson said.
Music classes that are offered to and tailored toward special needs students is not new at Indian Creek. However, United Sound time is different. Students are a part of the school’s band and are learning most of the same music as their peers. And the group meets during what would be considered homeroom time, Heavilin said.
“(We wanted) them to have a chance to play an instrument and to be in band like other kids are in band,” Heavilin said.
Instruments for students who needed them were funded with a $1,000 grant from the NHJ Educational Foundation. Money was used to repair used instruments that were then give to students in the program, Heavilin said.
Band students teach the special education students everything and the program is meant to be student-driven, Heavilin said.
Students who volunteered to be peer mentors underwent training that taught them how to teach others to play their instruments. Each student was then asked to walk another band student through how to play their instrument as practice. And the band students are responsible for arranging the music and finding a way to teach the music to the special education students, she said.
Teaching the students how to play the instruments is a way to bring the students happiness, senior Elizabeth Peters said.
“I really enjoy playing my instrument, teaching them to play can bring joy to them,” she said.
