Revere’s Music Department Wins Petrick Educator Award

The three members of Paul Revere Middle School’s Music Department’Lara Jacques, Vanessa (Ling) Dokko and Yosuke Miyoshi’have received a 2008-2009 Lori Petrick Excellence in Education Award. The award, which includes a $2,000 stipend, is given annually by the Palisades Charter Schools Foundation to educators within the Palisades Charter Complex. The four other 2009 winners will be profiled in upcoming issues. Judges selected the three music teachers because ‘of their inspiring interaction with, and the large number of students [600] they reach.’ When this reporter visited a recent joint planning period, it soon became obvious why music classes are popular at Revere: the teachers’ enthusiasm and esprit de corps were infectious. Between the three, they teach 18 performing groups (four of which meet during lunch). Band students, taught by Miyoshi, can participate in drum line, beginning winds, jazz band, and intro, senior or advanced band. Jacques instructs beginning strings, orchestra (including intro, senior and advanced). She also teaches symphony and chamber orchestras. Vocalists and choirs are Dokko’s expertise and include sixth-grade and mixed choir, show and concert choirs, Revere Singers and Madrigals. The three are not 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. teachers. Dokko and Miyoshi stayed after school and evenings to make live music possible for last weekend’s spring musical ‘Bugsy Malone.’ In late March, they joined with Jacques to take 150 students to the Heritage Festival in the San Francisco Bay area. At the festival, the band and choir won a silver award and the orchestra received a gold. ‘We all did really well, especially for a first time,’ said Jacques, who also accompanied the students on a tour of the UC Berkeley campus. In order to make the trip possible, the teachers helped organize donation drives, bake sales, and holiday wreaths for sale. During a Holiday Stroll in the business district last December, student groups played music and sang for tips. Miyoshi also assisted Palisades High band teacher Arwen Hernandez in last year’s Pacific Palisades Fourth of July parade. Jacques, who has a 12-year-old daughter in Revere’s vocal program, started teaching at the school in 1994. ‘I was an Army brat and lived all over the United States and Europe,’ said Jacques, who graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in clarinet performance and a master’s degree in education. Currently, she’s working on a second master’s, with an emphasis in conducting, by taking a three-summer program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Jacques began teaching orchestra in 1998 and has applied to take the Revere orchestra to the National Orchestra Festival in Santa Clara in early June. Dokko grew up in West Covina and graduated from UCLA in 2003 with a B.A. in music education. She was student teaching at Revere when the choir teacher, Jan Smith, retired. Dokko applied for the job and was hired. Originally she had planned to teach elementary and preschool and wasn’t quite sure about middle school. ‘I was scared at first, but I got to know the kids really well and the staff was supportive,’ said Dokko, who married in June. At UCLA, Dokko and Miyoshi lived three doors from each other in a dorm. Miyoshi, who plays trombone, was in the UCLA marching and pep band. ‘I went to Alabama for football games and Michigan, North Carolina and Minnesota for basketball games,’ he said. ‘We also got to record music for two movie sound tracks.’ Miyoski graduated in 2004 with a B.A. in music trombone performance and a teaching credential and started his career at Santana High School in Santee. He taught a year before coming to Revere. ‘I was unsure about middle school,’ he said. ‘Now I enjoy it more than high school.’ Teaching in a public school can have its disadvantages, like having to rely on a 50-year-old timpani that is beyond repair and a 30-year-old piano that needs to be replaced, but somehow the teachers continue to be upbeat. When asked what they’d like to see changed, Jacques instantly responded, ‘I’d like more double basses; mine are kind of ratty.’ Miyoshi added, ‘We’d all like to see Vanessa [Dokko] have a new piano.’ Revere students range from eager beginners to those who have taken private lessons since they were five. As diverse as the teachers’ personalities are, a common thread unites them. ‘We’re all musicians,’ Jacques said. ‘We have a passion for the same things.’ Dokko said, ‘We’re all flexible. Musicians have the same mentality and are able to work together without an ego.’ Miyoshi added, ‘We all do the same job and all have the same goals.’ They are also generous with their praise, crediting the strength of the award-winning program not only to the current administration’s support, but to the 50-year music tradition at Revere.