 Is that too soft? No. Sounds good. We'll do like one different triangle or something. We'll deal with that later. Hello everyone and welcome, I'm James Milan and this is Talk of the Town. We are here today at the Thompson School to talk to one of the newer teachers here at school at the end of his first semester. We are in the music room with the music teacher. He is Philip Dario Fiorentini and I believe you go by Dario, is that right? Dario is fine. Great. Thanks for having us in and basically we just want to take this opportunity as we often do on Talk of the Town to introduce you to the community and the community to you as well and find out really kind of what your journey was to get here, how the experience has been so far and what you've got, what you plan on going forward. With that as a preface, let me start by asking you, is this your first job as a music teacher? You look young enough for that possibly to be so, but I don't know. You're very kind James, but now I've been teaching, this is my fifth year teaching now and I used to teach in Borica County just north of Boston. So the move to here was an effort to get closer to Boston where I do live and I can't say I'm very happy here. Great. And excuse me for failing to recognize you as a grizzled vet of five years now. So but this is your second job as a teacher, your first exposure to Arlington I assume. Did you know anything about Arlington before this job opening came up? So I grew up just west of here in Concord, Mass. So as a child actually there was the long slide playground that I used to love to go down that huge long slide built into the hill. So that's about the only exposure I guess I've had besides just driving through and passing through the downtown. So but it is a good step closer to Boston than Bill Ricca that's for sure. Have you, has music been part of your life for your whole life? Is this a more of a kind of recent calling? Tell us a little bit about that. So I guess music's been a huge part of my life kind of since I was a kid but in different ways. So way back from when I was five, six years old it was playing on the piano that my mother brought from Mexico. My grandmother was a concert pianist, passed away when I was five actually. But having the piano in the house just allowed me to like twinkle out little tunes and figure out little Mozart melodies just sort of by ear, not exactly perfectly. But having it there as a toy was exposing me to music at a very young age so that when I got into sort of middle school I could choose the instrument that I really wanted which was the drum. So like hitting things. That's perfect. I'm sure your mother was delighted. Yeah. So that happened and that came along with like this toy drum set that got me going with grooves and rhythms and that kind of exploration. And when I got to high school it was in the high school band that I met Aldentina was my band director in Concord Carlisle High School. And a person with some influence as it turns out over your professional trajectory it sounds like. Yeah and like the phenomenal music that we would make as a school band aside you know he was a very delightful person and really made a nice community in this huge school that was like very welcoming to basically everyone. So I think that was the main attraction for me to become a music educator. And you said to become a music educator I'm interested to know was there a time as you're growing up as a kid and you're playing the piano you're playing the drums etc. You know your grandmother was a concert pianist etc. Did you have aspirations as a performer? Do you still perhaps? Well performing is always fun. It depends on the context you know a formal piano recital is very different than like a like festive playing at the house when my mother has company over you know. So it kind of depends on the context but I can say it's always nice to share music but I think in the end it's always going to be an intrinsic value. I don't think I'll ever stop playing piano for myself. Right. So performance you know performance is playing music of course and what you're what I hear you saying is yeah within the context of conviviality and you know and doing it for yourself etc. It makes a lot of sense. Not necessarily did you ever aspire to be a professional musician for instance. Yeah it's just it's important to realize that when you're watching a performance you're seeing the sum of hundreds of hours and thousands of hours even for some musicians probably spent in solitude you know really perfecting that craft. So if you don't enjoy that solitude part of it then you're not going to be able to do the performance part. And clearly you have staked out your territory here in music education and that is far from solitude. In fact here we sit in your music room which is a good you know a very nice sized space and also just very cheerful and I can just imagine it being filled with lots and lots of very young students. Tell us a little bit about your days here how often are the students getting music in their week and how often are you teaching throughout the day. So students have class in music about once per week and that's for forty minutes each time they come to visit and as you can see from my room I keep it very open because in that forty minutes we'll do a lot and typically I'll start with movement so doing some stretches and then I do a lot of imaginative movement with younger grades especially but even in upper grades as well where students have to use their imaginations basically to move in meaningful ways. So something that's an example is we're going to move around the room and you are an elephant so it's going to be very very heavy movements but your volume level needs to be pianissimo which means extremely soft so they see all these interesting combinations of how do you move heavy with a soft touch so exercising the mind in that way is important. We also move on to a lot of singing singing is very important because it's direct expression of musical ideas in upper grades we'll put that expression on to instruments so such as drum, cellophones, metallophones, marimba, some students have played piano for me a little bit but as you can see that's a lot that we cover in that sort of amount of time each week. Right and obviously students are always coming in here with lots of energy I'm sure they get to move around in their classrooms as well but nothing like the release that they probably find in this particular space. Do you also find that working with elementary school students clearly what you're choosing to do is easier in some ways because they have less self-consciousness than older students might around say these movement exercises that you do etc. So that's definitely true where students that are younger sort of don't have that confidence filter that students tend to develop when they go into like middle school age but sort of trying to tear that down is something I do with my upper grades and you know it's really you know some students will love to do the performance aspect like we mentioned before like some students love to share their music and go and like spread it with the world whereas other students definitely prefer to do that sort of solitude thing and it's really about getting each student to form their own relationship with music in a successful way that will make them able to express their musicality. What's the hardest thing about working with this age population? Remembering their names. There's about 500 students here and I think I can probably call out about 250 to 300 of them right now. And you're about four months into this task or so of name memorization that's not bad that's that's pretty good seems to me are you actually seeing I assume so that you see all 500 students at one point or another in your week or over a course of time. Yeah so like I said it's each class will come visit for four minutes each week and then through the week I'll see all 500 students. So that does see I mean you put it you know facetiously just learning their names being difficult but that does sound like it would be hard to you know to to feel some of the same kind of connection you'd feel if you were seeing people over and over again and a smaller number of them. Do you do you find that you've you have or let me ask it this way what lessons have you already learned relatively early still in your teaching career about what goals are reasonable to expect of yourself and of your students through your music education that you're giving them. So it's just a lot of multitasking I guess you could say James. You know you need to understand not just like music level because everyone's at a different music level you know you don't start learning music when you come into my music class at five years old you start learning music from when you're still in the womb of your mother you know is a really when it starts so every child comes in at a vastly different level I've had five-year-olds that can sing perfectly in tune and five-year-olds who have never tried making a singing sound in their life. So you're differentiating musically pretty much from the get-go in kindergarten all the way up through fifth grade as well so that's just one aspect when you take into account students with special needs students with IEPs or 504 plans with behavioral plans students that have hard things going at home you need to take into account like what sort of activities and what sort of participatory things can you do in the class that will be beneficial to them you know when I choose songs to sing and activities to do it's not just about doing the song or activity I also tell a whole lot about the history of the music where it comes from what it's about why are we singing these songs you need to give the music purpose for it to resonate with children. As you you know are getting used to a new school and a new student population etc do you find that your interactions with the students are separate from everything that is happening in the rest of the school or are you being do you have ways to integrate yourself and what you're doing with your your colleagues and what's happening in the classroom you know outside of here. So the amount of collaborative time that I get with the colleagues here at the Thompson school is quite limited actually and that's just due to scheduling and you know there's a lot to do in the day and there's just not a lot of time for that. So in regards to making things applicable I would say like just the social emotional learning aspect of it that's just teaching students what it means to act in a society and how to behave as people you know just doing very fun team building games there's one called the telephone song where you get to call out someone's name and the whole class sings that person and then that person calls the next person and it's sort of a chain event right and so in the past I've had that going sort of towards the end of the music class so when the teacher comes in I'll call out the teacher's name and then it puts the teacher sort of integrated into our music class for that very brief you know one minute turnover time. Right clearly a small thing but it makes all the difference. Yeah lovely little connection there. Many of your colleagues I know have to worry about standards. Standards imposed by the state for them to reach X right in their classes. Do you are you do you have to also conform to those kinds of things and what are if so what are those standards like what how is it that the the state or the Department of Education is measuring the progress of your students. So yes we do have to worry about standards and I'm actually currently in the process of working with all the other elementary school teachers in Arlington for music education to develop a curriculum that's entirely based on satisfying those standards for Massachusetts and the way it looks like the what we get is a giant document that basically has it's divided into sort of three sections create perform respond and those sections are then elaborated on in terms of singing in terms of performing in terms of playing instruments and then by grade level as well so like what should a kindergarten or be creating musically what should a fourth grader be able to read musically what should a third grader etc. So we're currently sort of revamping the curriculum from second grade up and the way it has to happen is you do second grade in the following year you can carry that through into third grade and the following year it's into fourth grade so it's sort of a long process but you kind of have to do it like that so you have a baseline makes sense. So switching gears you had mentioned earlier that you were interested in moving as you moved from Bill Ricca here to Arlington that part of the attraction for you was that it was closer to the city. Why is that? Is that are you living in the city or where are you coming to Arlington from? I'm currently living in Quincy which is south of Boston so I did grow up near Boston so I do really like the city but I'm actually currently living in a boat so. Is that right? How did that happen? That was just a question between where did me and my roommate want to move and then we couldn't decide and then we needed something at the time we needed something between Bill Ricca and Rhode Island so we thought the coast had less traffic turns out we were wrong but one thing led to another and then we ended up buying a boat. Well I know we all know that housing is tough in Boston but you've got your own version of that obviously. Anything that you you know I'm sure that our audience would be their interests would be piqued to hear that you in fact live on a boat. Anything that you can share you know in the form of hey this is what I have to deal with all the time or here's an amusing thing that happens when you live on a boat something like that that you might share with us? Well my first year it was it was a stormy year in the winter so the in early March I believe there was a storm that flooded the seaport district three separate times on three different high tides and we basically couldn't go on our boat during that time so it was me and my roommate and our dog the big pit pole macho we had to basically live in the marina offices for two nights. So they right I guess you make do as you can and that was your emergency shelter for for that time. Yeah aside the storms you know when it gets cold enough you have to take blocks of wood and break the ice around the boat it's just a bunch of little things that you don't have to do when your house is not afloat. Right absolutely but and and I assume that the boat itself is stationary and remains that way it's not or are you in fact able to take it out? We've taken it out about 25 to 30 times. Okay. Our favorite trip is to heading to Boston right around five o'clock and then so that when you're in the harbor it's the sunset and you can see sort of the beautiful Somerville sunset with the pink sky and then the lights turn on in Boston and it kind of falls into a night scene. Yeah that sounds it's unbeatable. That sounds like a real respite from whatever you know working with 500 kids throughout the week might you know might elicit in you that that seems like a good way to let it all go. Anything else that you do in in your own life that is you know something that is important to you not perhaps totally unrelated to working here at school but again that we always like to find out a little bit about the folks we're talking to that has nothing to do with what they're doing professionally. Sure well I I'm an aspiring adventure so hence the boat life hence you know I've taken trips to Utah and Colorado and Iceland to do backpacking and camping and I'm an avid mountain biker I do downhill mountain biking at the Highland mountain bike is my favorite one I have the sticker on my car I believe. I'm an avid skier so I'm getting ready for this season and hopefully we'll be spending lots of time up in Maine. Sounds sounds good and also maybe you might want to get out west for the skiing as well if and when you can. Yes. So last thing just to bring it right back to school again. Do you have concrete goals for yourself you know in this job and over the sense of this career that you've identified and that you are moving towards or is it is that kind of beside the point and really there's enough to worry about on a day-to-day week-to-week basis. No there are very concrete goals you know I kind of teach I have it in my mind to teach for a 30-year plan which me myself not being 30 years old can't say if I'm going to be interested in music when I'm 30 technically but I have a strong assumption I will be and the day that I can teach a kindergarten class for six years and then see them grow up to be 30 and still have music as a strong connection in their life as a strong backbone for them to be able to rely upon that's when I'll know that I've satisfied my goal. Right okay so I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying is now you you'll you get to teach kindergartners you'll have them for the six years that they're here when that first class that you've had for the six years they're here gets to be 30 years old or so so another 15 20 years after that that's that is you know you'll you'll feel that kind of okay I've accomplished something important. Yeah I don't need to I don't mean to dive too deep here but it's really like a cultural shift you know I talked to a lot of parents and I love to talk to parents actually and a lot of adults and colleagues and you know I can't tell you how many times I hear oh I used to play that but then this or oh I used to play guitar and then I don't know how to do it anymore I haven't played in years you know well like why it must have not been that meaningful to you then or that important so yeah well I have to say that that aspiration sounds like a pure teacher to me because from my own years of teaching I really recognize in it the fact that you of course enjoy the experience that you have with students who are right in front of you every day and every week but the idea the deeper sense that something that you're doing with and for them is going to have an impact over time in their lives is something that I think all teachers hold very dear and and good luck to you with that aspiration I have the sense even from our brief chat that that may very well be the case and that just as your band teacher in high school turned out to have a big effect on your own decisions about what you wanted to do professionally I wouldn't be surprised at all if you'll find that students come back to you years from now and have something similar to say I hope so for your sake thank you James I'm interested to it's interesting to think that for you as an adventurer or an inspiring adventurer as you said and also a musician by calling it by profession how do you balance those things do you find that you bring music around with you everywhere you go including hiking up the mountains how does that work well I think everyone does to a certain extent like music's everywhere in movies TV shows there might be music at the beginning of this interview or at the end but I do know that I've literally carried music in Utah when I hiked a you know 13,000 foot mountain I brought my ukulele with me and then promptly ran out of water so I thought I made a big mistake there you mean you're right the ukulele took up the space at the water with it yes so but then there's other yeah I was not full of water unfortunately but uh yeah I mean besides just you know listening to a lot of my favorite artists you know music it's sort of it draws moods so depending on the mood that I'm in you know I'll have classical music or hip hop music or country music or folk music that I listen to and you know as a music teacher I get tons of people that give me music listening suggestions so I'm happy to say I have a large arsenal of songs that I can choose from to set my mood right and just out of curiosity are there any genres musical genres in at you know at this point in your life that you would say you really don't appreciate I don't think I can fair enough you know I have found that when I was your age I did have like no way country music no way bluegrass music no way etc and as I've gotten older I just realized man there's good music in all of these genres and you just have to find the good stuff yeah well it's not I mean there's music that I don't like of course but there's no music that's not valid because if it's being made that means that someone likes it even if it's just the one person that makes it it's meaningful that one person that's all we need I only use the bottom typically since I'll pop up and hit a side but