At first, the notes started slowly, halting, unsure.
Jerimiah Worley sat behind an electric keyboard, the first strains of “Subwoofer Lullaby” from the “Minecraft” video game coming out hesitantly as he softly struck the slick plastic keys.
At his side, music therapist Edie Steiner played another keyboard. The sound filled the small classroom-turned-performance venue at Bridges Learning Center. As the fourth-grader continued to play, his confidence grew.
When he finished, he received a round of applause at Bridges Got Talent, the schools’ third annual talent show. Other performances included a group of third-grade girls presenting on women in history who inspire them; an ensemble of drummers; rappers; and a full-band rendition of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.”
“It’s a tremendous gift to be able to help somebody write the soundtrack of their life,” Steiner said after Jerimiah’s performance.
Where Jerimiah, 10, is now — slow to speak to other students, nervous to perform in front of a crowd — is where Steiner said some of her high school students were years ago. On a recent Thursday afternoon, those once-quiet teens performed together as full bands, connecting and expressing themselves through music.
Performances were grounded in dialectical behavior therapy, a type of therapy for individuals who experience intense emotions.
“They do a lot with teaching kids really explicit skills they can use to help regulate their emotions, both at school and in other environments,” said Principal Michele Angelo. “There’s a lot of work — every kid has a story, and for some kids it’s a huge thing just for them to be able to express themselves in front of other people.”
Self-expression is key for Bridges students in Akron
Bridges serves about 120 students with emotional or behavioral needs in Akron Public Schools. While at the downtown building, students receive social-emotional and mental health support that’s more challenging for traditional classroom settings to provide.
Established in 2006, Bridges combined programs originally split between Betty Jane Elementary and Goodyear Middle School. The school recently added a program for students up to 21 years old with significant cognitive disabilities.
Some students spend their entire K-12 career here, Angelo said; others are mentored by the nearly 70-person staff a few months before returning to their home schools.
Last year, Bridges graduated about 10 percent of its students, Angelo said, sending them back to their home schools with skills they learned in music and art therapy sessions.
“We offer them a lot,” Angelo said, “but there’s a lot of missed opportunities for them when they’re not able to be in a home school with ‘regular ed’ peers.”
Steiner hopes music will foster connection, conversation
As the school district’s lone music therapist, Steiner considers herself a unicorn. Each day she teaches students not just the skills to play the instruments that fill her classroom from floor to ceiling but how to delve into the lyrics of the songs to find structure and meaning in the words and notes.
She has seniors who remember songs they first learned in kindergarten — those lyrics and chords now part of their personal soundtrack.
Leading up to the talent show, student performers were allowed to decide who they wanted in the audience, from family members to school staff. Meanwhile, guest judges offered words of encouragement after each performance.
“Even though we call it a talent show, this is really a culmination of all the work that the kids do throughout the year in their art and music therapy sessions and classes,” Angelo said.
Aunt: Music and coding are big interests for her nephew, a Bridges student
Jerimiah’s aunt, Stasha Heller, had forgotten whether her nephew was going to play the piano or beatbox — noting he is good at both.
“He’s been into music since he was a toddler,” she said.
His performance?
“It was amazing. I enjoyed it. It was good to see him tough it out — we started rocky and then we finished out strong.”
Music and coding are like second languages for Jerimiah, his aunt said. His selection of “Minecraft” music married the two.
Student artworks show toolkit for social-emotional wellbeing
Next door, student artwork lined the cafeteria.
Each was created as part of Shenan May’s art therapy sessions — oil pastels and watercolors in mosaic swirls, collage and other mediums gave viewers insight into each child’s creative process and emotions surrounding their work.
“One thing I want people to notice when they look at my work is what I am trying to say with my art,” Miles Waldrup wrote in an artist statement accompanying his work, “The Rainbow Scribble.”
“Making art makes me feel happy and calm.”
May, like Steiner, works closely with Bridges students to provide a toolkit for navigating day-to-day experiences and emotions.
For some students, May said, that’s a toolkit fashioned from a shoebox that has squishy stress balls or hard candies to engage their senses and get students back into their “learning brain,” she said.
“They now have [tools] from music and art therapy to take with them so they can graduate from this program and go back to their home school,” May said. “It’s incredible.”
Principal: Kids going through ‘life-changing, life-altering improvements’
Looking at the artwork and listening to each performance was a reminder for Angelo of the work that goes on at Bridges. While Thursday may have felt like a normal day for the school, she said, it was a chance for its students, and staff, to appreciate the progress made under its roof.
“Some of our kids are going through, quite frankly, life-changing, life-altering improvements,” Angelo said. “That’s kind of what this day represents for all of them.”
As for music, it’s something Steiner hopes her students share with their families for years to come — be it the songs they performed on Thursday or tunes thumping through a car stereo — as a way to foster deeper conversations.
One day, she said, her students will sing to their babies or teach their grandchildren a dance they learned in her class.
Said Steiner: “They’ll just pay it forward.”
