Each of us has a gift, and if we are fortunate we may discover
what it is in our lifetime. Dolly Parton says,
”
A peacock that rests on his feathers is just another turkey.
”
Each of us has a gift, and if we are fortunate we may discover what it is in our lifetime. Dolly Parton says, “A peacock that rests on his feathers is just another turkey.” If we are even more fortunate, we will discover how to use our gift to benefit others.
Someone in our community who has tapped into her gift of music to benefit others in a big way is Gretchen Vandenberg. She has been part of Gilroy’s unified school system for nearly 30 years now, and her joyous musical instruction has touched approximately 28,000 students. Even as a teenager, she was already exploring her musical talents by teaching kids at summer camp; from there she went on to teach in North Carolina, Minnesota and Alabama before coming to Gilroy. She has taught music from the third-grade level to junior high, and at San Jose State she spent a number of years teaching teachers how to teach music. A perpetual student herself, she has earned many degrees, including a master’s in music, a master’s in educational administration and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. Along the way, many people encouraged Gretchen to “go for it” in developing her gift of music to share with others, people such as Frank Ginelli, Debra Smith and community activist Florence Trimble.
Gretchen describes new research which shows that memory is improved by musical learning: “When other factors are eliminated, and the only difference between two groups of kids is that one group goes to a music class twice a week and the other doesn’t, the test scores of the students taking music improve.”
And that’s in subjects other than music, such as math and reading. Basically, music is a way of growing a child’s brain in new ways that benefit that child overall. The fact that our music programs are being cut in public schools should be of great concern to all. In Gilroy, sixth-grade music has been cut. In other words, kids can take P.E. five days a week, but there is no music class for them to take. Fourth-and- fifth-grade students give up their recess time to come practice music with Gretchen. Two of our junior highs do not have a choir, which means most kids in the public school system have no access to musical practice that will prepare them for joining high school choirs.
Some people ask Gretchen why she isn’t employed in some higher level administrative position, but the answer to that is simple: “I love to make music with the children – it’s a wonderful thing to do.”
Someone once told me that volunteering is reaching out your hand into the darkness and pulling another’s hand back into the light, then finding out it’s your own. Preferring to stay hands on, Gretchen recently volunteered to start a new program called “Vineyard Kids,” a music and theater group for grades 2 through 8 that meets from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m. on Tuesdays at the Gilroy United Methodist Church. The children come with many different backgrounds and creative gifts of their own. When asked what they are into, the answers range from kickball and soccer to playing the clarinet, the violin, canoeing, camping, hiking, raising reptiles and “boogie dancing,” as one young lady put it. The children around us are just at the beginning of discovering their gifts. Let’s make sure we do all we can to nurture them to grow into something rich and useful. In the words of Gretchen’s philosophy, “Every time you give a child a song, you give that child a gift that can never be taken away.”
