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Rock Music History, a one-semester pilot program Ms. Smith has devised, designed and now teaches with the help of band director Kevin Klepacki, defies all the traditions of the prototypical high school music curriculum. In front of more than a dozen peers, Ms. Smith, a composed young lady with a passion for the guitar, lectures not on Bach, but Berry, and not on Haydn, but The Who.
And her students love it.
Every other school day, in a band room lined with cellos, horns, percussive instruments and various other symphonic tools, 16 shaggy-haired teenagers in tattered jeans and hooded shirts learn about the culture-shaking power produced by a single electric guitar.
Still early in the course, the class recently completed a section on the blues (rock 'n' roll's predecessor), and has now moved on to rock's earliest days and the political and cultural events that helped shape the genre.
"I'm sure you've all heard of Brown vs. Board of Education. Does anyone know what happened," Ms. Smith asked during one of her more recent lectures.
After a moment of silent recollection, one student spoke up and said, "I think it desegregated the schools."
That's what the Supreme Court decision did, and according to Ms. Smith, the timing of integration couldn't have been more apropos for the development of rock. The student teacher, as it were, explained that as black students started learning with white students, the white students were better exposed to black music. And the seed was planted.
Indeed, the intent of the course is not just to teach her fellow peers trivia about rock stars, but to give them a social context in which to understand how these sounds shaped their generation, and their parents' generation, and at this point, really, their grandparents' generation.
"Does anyone know what was going on in the 1950s," Ms. Smith then asked the class, before giving a briefing on America's strained, post-World War II relationship with Russia. "But also, at the time most of white middle class was prospering, and a lot of babies were born to that generation; they were called baby boomers. There was more money to spend, and when teens had money they started to dictate what was popular."
What's popular for teenagers is rebellion; first in movies, then in music. And what music would be more rebellious for the white middle-class than poor black rhythm and blues, a genre that had Big Mama Thornton proclaiming "You ain't nothing but a hound dog" back when Elvis Presley was an unknown Mississippi truck driver.
Then, in 1954, a baby-faced white guy with a Superman spit-curl coif recorded "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake, Rattle and Roll," since regarded by many as the birth of rock 'n' roll.
That artist was Bill Haley. The single "Rock Around the Clock," originally a fairly obscure B-side, is now the third highest selling single of all time, right behind Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Elton John's Princess Diana dedication of "Candle in the Wind."
This was all news to the students. One of them referred to him as Bill Harley.
"Bill Haley was the first white rock 'n' roll star, but he wasn't what America was looking for," noted Ms. Smith. "We needed someone with more charisma."
Enter Chuck Berry, a self-taught black musician from the South who is now recognized as the first real rock guitarist, one who could play said instrument just like he was ringing a bell. When the conversation turned to Berry, the class listened along with his signature "Johnny B. Good," as Ms. Smith and Mr. Klepacki helped dissect the lyrics.
Additionally, a video of an early Chuck Berry performance saw him doing his bouncing one-legged "duck walk" across stage, a dance not typically known to today's youth. Mr. Klepacki noted the differences seen in his performance, compared with other musicians who came before him.
"He's doing a lot of things that we haven't seen in other artists," said Mr. Klepacki. "Different guitar techniques and suggestive movements-after Bill Haley things really started to change."
Luckily, it didn't stop there. Chuck Berry paved the way for Elvis, who opened the door for the Beatles. The Rolling Stones brought a new kind of blue-eyed sex appeal. Bob Dylan made rock poetry, while Jimi Hendrix made rock explosive. Led Zeppelin obliterated radio receivers. Pink Floyd made rock artful. Punk, Heavy Metal and New Wave blew up concurrently. Nirvana rewrote the tablature. And so on.
But those are lessons for later in the course. And they are lessons that, much like her peers, Ms. Smith was previously unfamiliar with.
"I didn't know that much until I started researching the 50s about two months ago and started downloading songs," said Ms. Smith. "I don't necessarily like all the songs, like 'Rock Around the Clock,' but Chuck Berry I started to like, and now he's on my [iPod.]"
Ms. Smith hopes to pursue music in college, although she is not so sure about teaching, which is ironic, in a sense, as she is currently laying the foundation for a future rock music class at Shepaug.
According to her senior project teacher, Alfredo Ciarlo, if all goes well, hers could be the first project parlayed into a course.
"It's a first, and we turned a few heads around the school, trust me," said Mr. Ciarlo. "But this could be breaking ground."
The senior project is a mandatory class for all 12th graders at Shepaug Valley High School. Students must complete a project of their choosing, ranging from starting a school newspaper, making an album or teaching a rock 'n' roll class, in order to graduate.
The timing of Ms. Smith's proposal was particularly apt, as the school just hired Mr. Klepacki, a first-year band teacher, whose goal was to bring some kind of rock class into the curriculum. He said he is disappointed that the experience hasn't turned Ms. Smith on to teaching, but is pleased to note that the work she has done could be the paradigm for a potential course in rock 'n' roll.
Hail, hail.
