FERGUS – Assuming the role of teacher rather than student, former St. Joseph Catholic School student Alex Shellington recently revisited his alma mater to share his knowledge and passion for music.
On Jan. 13 Shellington, accompanied by St. Joseph principal Todd Goodwin and his current music teacher Jennifer Dunnett, joined in on his mother Pam Pegelo’s Grade 6 class to teach a music lesson.
Having already completed Grade 10 instrumental music, Shellington was enrolled in Grade 10 guitar and Grade 11 instrumental this quadmester with Dunnett, a secondary school teacher at St. James Catholic School in Guelph.
At the beginning of the semester, Dunnett spoke with Shellington and Pegelo about trying to switch up the course to challenge the former Fergus student, which involved taking on a leadership role.
Pegelo, who teaches French and music at St. Joseph, had been trying to come up with ideas of what she could do online with students, and she recalled Dunnett saying Shellington needed the extra challenge.
“I thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if he could come back to his alma mater … and teach some of his younger peers?’” Pegelo said.
She then proposed the idea for Shellington to lead an online session with her Grade 6 music class and teach them some things with guitar and piano that they hadn’t worked through yet.
From there, Shellington ran through lessons on different chords, harmonic melodies and introduced some new vocabulary to the class.
Although he had taught some classes to his peers ahead of stepping in front of the Grade 6 class, Shellington said teaching online was different and a little more difficult.
“Teaching to younger kids and teaching basic music knowledge was kind of interesting,” he said.
“I tried to teach it in kind of a fun way and ended up having a lot of fun and I think they got something out of it, too.”
He said getting the students to comprehend some of the concepts and the hearing was challenging.
“We did some like listening activities and some of them didn’t know the difference between different sounds as well as I would per se or my peers,” he explained.
“That made a little more challenging, but they ended up developing their ear a lot it seems just by the end of the class.
Shellington, who started learning music at the age of seven with piano, is versed on trombone, bagpipes, bass drum and guitar, which he’s been playing for roughly two years.
“He explained and demonstrated with all these different terms and concepts with both piano and his electric guitar,” Pegelo explained.
“And then at the end, he was also doing some requests to play some of the music he likes to play with his electric guitar because he is himself a big music fan and has a wide variety of music that he enjoys, so he was sharing some of his talents as well.”
Pegelo said she even received feedback from parents on how the students enjoyed having Shellington come to teach.
“I was really inspired,” Goodwin added. “We want to paint a bit of a bright picture here and in the midst of the doom and gloom, we want to paint a bit of light.
“To see him taking that extra leap at such a young age really.”
“It’s been neat kind of seeing his progression as he’s gone from that first lesson, where he wasn’t sure what to do as much all the way through to … how competent he was in front of the Grade 6s,” Dunnett said of Shellington’s progress.
Goodwin, who also sat in on the lesson, said he found the students were very engaged, recognizing it was something different for them with many having missed out on some of the fun aspects of school that they haven’t been able to engage in due to the pandemic
“A lot of our kids do enjoy the arts, and it’s something that even though it’s in the curriculum, not as much time is allotted to it,” he explained.
“So that gives them an opportunity to have some fun with a hands-on learning activity.
“Especially when they’re sitting at home, and especially during COVID, just a break from the routine is really engaging for them.”
Dunnett described the exercise as “reversed learning.”
“It’s a question of he’s kind of taking himself out of that ‘I’m now a student, but I’m a student still and trying to think … here’s the concept that I want them to understand and to grasp or the skill, how do I get them to be in that skill?’ And really breaking the task down,” she explained.
She noted she’s previously led exercises like this a couple times with different students that needed something else.
“It’s individualizing their education to allow them to excel, but still challenge them to gain new skills,” Dunnett said.
“Every so often you come across a certain student it will work with and allows them to really showcase what they know – but expand on what they know in a new way,” she added.
“It’s adding a new flavour to work their own learning.”
“It feels great,” Shellington said of his experience as the teacher.
“It feels like I’m actually doing something with [music] other than just practicing in my room all the time – it feels like I’m actually making a contribution in some way.”
