Mennonite Central Committee

Students meet dynamic dog

Press Release, March 2001
Kingston, Jamaica
by Rachel Miller

It's music class time at North Street Primary School in Kingston, Jamaica, and Dynamic Dog is hiding. Thirty giggling sixth-graders sing as a classmate looks for the tiny plastic dog. The idea is to sing quietly when the searcher is far away from the dog, and more and more loudly as the searcher approaches the hiding spot.

The students' teacher, Serving and Learning Together (SALT) volunteer Jared Peifer, is using the game to teach musical dynamics and the terms "piano" and "forte." He grins and shakes his head as his charges sing "Where is Dynamic Dog?" to the tune of "Happy Birthday to You."

"Think about this," he begs the uniformed girl as she peers under a pew in the church sanctuary-turned-classroom. "Does it make sense to keep looking in the same place if we're singing softly?"

About 270 students attend the church-supported school in this inner-city Kingston neighborhood. Peifer experiments with musical styles to hold their attention; he is also taking conga drum lessons so he can accompany students as they sing.

Music teacher is one of many hats Peifer wears in his assignment. The Atglen, Pa., native also serves as a teacher's assistant in the Grade One classroom, directs a choir and a recorder club, works on the principal's computer, does administrative tasks and is organizing a recycling project.

"I don't know how we functioned before Mr. Peifer," says principal Molly Jacas. She was disappointed in previous volunteers from other programs, who seemed to be all talk and no action.

"SALT is different. They do, do, do, do, do!" she beams.

Back in the classroom, the students seem to be catching on. They sing more and more loudly, and eventually Dyamic Dog is found. Peifer dismisses his students, and the dynamic SALT volunteer heads to the first-grade classroom.