34 Years of Music

Judy McMahon began building up Springer’s music program on her first day, 34 years ago. Her longevity stems from her passion for teaching and for music. She recently opened up about her journey, revealing how she got started and what has kept her enthusiasm high for more than three decades in education.

“I grew up in a musical family—My grandmother was a music teacher, and my uncle was one also. It was just part of our family, and I always truly loved it. I thought it would be great to actually be able to pass that passion on to students one day.”

Mrs. McMahon may have been the perfect match for Springer from the start. She loved to create a classroom where students could learn to love music, regardless of their skill level and what they might have experienced in the past.

“Through the years I've had students come in from other schools with really negative experiences and they're afraid because they were made to read music and they couldn't read music. They were, like, terrified and you could just see them after the first day when I would talk to them and tell them what my classroom was like. I said ‘You don't have to ever worry about anything in here. You’re always going to be successful.’  Their eyes would get so big—My goal was to make sure that everybody was successful here.”

Finding that she could make a difference, and that her efforts were supported, she began to imagine and work toward building Springer’s music program into something special and unique. Judy recalls, “I was determined that we were going to build a program here and it was going to be geared for our population of students.”

The difference in teaching students with ADHD, executive function challenges and learning differences like dyslexia, can be that keeping students engaged is more important and also more challenging. Judy explains how important it is to “chunk down” lessons. “Every single lesson that I teach I have an end goal that I start messaging. And from my beginning goal, you wouldn't even know what the end goal is going to be because I take the students through probably 5-6 seven steps before we even get there.”

When lessons turned out to be uninteresting for students? Mrs. McMahon learned from that and developed something new, without letting it offend her. Part of her long success is her adaptability and creativity, always prioritizing the student learning experience. “You know what works are very interesting, very engaging lessons because otherwise you lose them. I learned to include lots of hands-on activities.”

Looking back, she considers one of her favorite experiences to be the inception of the Nortia Aplin Musician in Residence program. Instituted in honor of former director Norita Aplin, the program brings a professional musician to campus for two weeks each year. The musician works with all students during music classes and collaborates closely with a group of fifth graders to learn, practice and perform a piece of music. Through the years, musicians have taught African drums, steel drums, ukuleles, opera, harp, and more. As a statement of the importance of music education, it speaks volumes, and has created decades of memories for her and her students alike. Judy says, “I don't know of any other school that does that and that to me is just so huge.”

To all the teachers who make opportunities happen, and who make learning fun, thank you. You, and your contributions are HUGE in countless lives, in more ways than you will ever know.