Photo By Master Sgt. David Largent | "Teaching seventh and eighth graders you have to keep them engaged. Try and keep them...... read more read more
A deployment can seem like a long time, but many service members find ways to help the time pass more quickly. Some come up with ways to make the time go faster for others as well as themselves.
One member of the Headquarters, Headquarters Battery, 115th Fires Brigade, who works at the Zone 6 camp command cell, started teaching Guitar lessons to make the time go faster.
In his 26 years Sgt. Tyrell P. Peterson, has been busy. Since graduating from high school he has become a college graduate with a teaching degree, started a teaching job in Phoenix, where he teaches music to kindergartners through eighth graders, has served most of an eight year enlistment, married his wife Lexi about three years ago, bought a house, and has a couple months left of a yearlong deployment here in Kuwait, where he teaches guitar lessons in his spare time.
Peterson teaches his students to play about a dozeninstruments and plays six instruments himself.
A lot of people listen to music to relieve stress, but Peterson doesn't just listen to it, he teaches it.
"When you're playing music, your brain is in a completely different area. You're thinking about the scales, what the song is saying, you're thinking about what you were doing the last time you heard the song or the last time you played that song. You're not thinking about work orders or whatever is going on. It gives you time to sit and think plus it gives you a discipline you can work on, playing better, writing music if you feel like doing that. Plus it's also stress relieving to show other people how to do something they want to do and help facilitate that because you get to see them learning and progressing. It makes them feel better and it makes you feel better seeing them improve. It helps improve the situation; it does the most good for the most people," said Peterson.
"It's the teacher in me, I love showing that stuff, I love teaching. I love watching people when they actually get it and they can do it again on their own and they are excited about it and you gave that to them. That's the cool thing about it and they can progress from there," he said. "As a music teacher I knew there were people who wanted to learn to play guitar, so why wouldn't I do something to help those people do that? It's like it's not a big deal, I can do it," Peterson added.
Teaching a weekly evening class can make the day longer, but going from work order to work order can make the days seem long too.
"Every day is long here, what else am I going to do? It gives me something to look forward to, something to prepare for," Peterson said referring to his evening guitar class. "It keeps me thinking forward instead of thinking where I could be other than here. It keeps me focused on something other than work or being in the barracks. It gives me somewhere else to be," said Peterson. "It gives me something to break up the week, something to prepare for and you hope, other people are preparing for it too. You hope that they are practicing and enjoying playing the guitar," Peterson said.
"I've never taught guitar before, not in classes. Here it's been nice because I've had a chance to think about it methodically which I've been trying to do back home. I've been trying at school, but you get so busy. But here I've had more time to plan, that's been really helpful," said Peterson.
"I've seen a lot of improvement in the students who practice. It doesn't matter who you are teaching, adults or kids, you always have to jump on them to practice because you can't get anywhere without practice. When they practice and come in to class you can see amazing improvements in just a few months or even a week. It's really fun to see. See things clicking and them understanding and learning the chords. You can say play this chord and they jump right to it and before they had never touched an instrument in their life," he said.
It's not just good for Peterson!
"So they'll go home from here with another skill they didn't have before, which I think is really cool. They can say they came to Kuwait and learned how to play a guitar, they can teach their kids how to play. It's something they can use to bond with their family," said Peterson.
"What am I getting out of it, it feels good, it's a gift that you're giving somebody and you know they're going to go home with that. Plus it keeps my skills sharp. When I first started the guitar lessons it had been eight months since I had taught anything. It was really nice knowing I still had it. I still had the teaching skills; I could still explain it I could break things down and help people understand it. Teaching takes practice," he said. "It keeps me grounded in what I do back home; it kinda keeps me thinking about the future when I do get back home. Things I learn here I can use when I get back. I've learned a lot about practicing techniques. I used to start right off with chords, but I've found working more with the left hand is really important before you jump into the chords," he added.
According to Peterson there are similarities and differences between teaching adults and elementary age children.
"Teaching seventh and eighth graders you have to keep them engaged. Try and keep them focused on what you want them to be doing, keeping them on task. The same thing can occur here too. You have to make sure they're staying motivated, practicing, and staying on task in class because they love to chat. You have to keep them busy, don't give them free time, and make them keep thinking constantly about what they're doing. Is everybody checking your thumb, are you checking your fingers, where are your fingers at, is your thumb on the right string watch your fingers, make sure they are curved, watch your position, alright we're going to do this, play it, ready go. You never give them a chance to sit there and think about it. A lot of drill is really key to keeping kids on task and keeping adults on task," said Peterson.
Adults can tell you why they do not understand something that kids may not. They can't tell you why they're not getting it and adults can communicate to you what they're having a hard time with. So working with an adult they might say, 'I don't understand how to put my fingers here. Why can't I do this.' A kid may have a problem for weeks and weeks until you finally see the problem they're having but an adult can communicate it to you. My finger doesn't feel right, it hurts when I do this and you can say oh turn your wrist like this and it will fix it.
The long days here in Kuwait can seem pretty short when compared to long days back home.
"I teach music, kindergarten through eighth grade, general music and then I teach band and orchestra before and after school. So at the end of the day, I teach around eleven classes. Each one is at least half an hour," he said.
He taught in west Phoenix in a low income area for a year and a half before leaving in January 2009 for the deployment.
"It was a shock to my students and the school staff. When I went in with my orders in November [2008] I showed them to my principle. We talked about what we were going to do. They got a long term substitute," he said.
The first thing one of my students said to me was, "Have you ever shot anybody?" said Peterson.
"That's the first thing they say, ever shot anybody, are you going to bring home a machinegun all that stuff. Hope you don't die, hope you don't get killed, hope no one shoots you." Then they draw you pictures. The last few days of school they all made me cards and gave me presents and stuff. One drew a picture of me flying a jet over the school, they had no idea what I was going to be doing, I had no idea really what I was going to be doing here either!" he said.
"I told them I'll be back, my seventh graders are going to be in high school when I get back. That's going to be hard, I really love that class, they're the best class I've ever had, and they're not going to be there when I get back. The kids, they grow so fast. I'll have to relearn their names, their attitudes, they're all completely different, and so it's going to be like being a brand new teacher," Peterson said.
"I have a new school, the school I taught at had a new school built behind it so I'll have a new room in a new school with new personnel. Brand new school with new students, new teachers, everything will be different. I was pulled out and came over here for a year and I will go back and everything will be completely different, so I'm kinda bracing myself for that," he said.
"I think the school was more shocked. Especially the kids, it's nice to have their support. The teachers have been really supportive too, they threw a going away party, and they're there for my wife. It's nice to have a big support group, they have 635 students at the school and I think I've gotten something from almost every single one of them. My room is completely packed with calendars and stuff. One class made a calendar for my wife, they drew a picture for each month and she can mark the days off. So it's just thoughtful stuff like that," said Peterson. "When they see the uniform they think you have guns and go shoot, but I use the keyboard and mouse and a guitar quite a bit too. But that's mostly for stress release," he added.
Peterson planned on joining the Wyoming National Guard. He planned on getting his teaching degree. He also planned on getting a job as a music teacher. But, he didn't plan on being deployed to Kuwait!
"The thing is when you're teaching music, when you're doing it all day long, you don't want to listen to it, you don't want to talk about it when you go home, when someone has a question about music or their instruments and you say, you know I do this all day. So getting away from it actually has been really refreshing. It's been a nice break. When you've been away from it a while you realize how much you miss it, how much it really means to you instead of being saturated by it all the time," he said.
"I miss my wife. It's funny, when I got deployed I became so detached from everything else. Then I got here and realized there will be an end to it. It's made it really obvious how important my wife and family really are, how much I miss them," announced Peterson.
Petersons' enlistment will end in February, but he will be on stoploss a couple months until the deployment ends.
"I will be discharged in April when I get back. I will be happily discharged and I will have served my country and be ready to move onto other things. It was a great experience, but I will be glad it's over," said Peterson.
| Date Taken: | 02.07.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 02.07.2010 07:32 |
| Story ID: | 45046 |
| Location: | CAMP VIRGINIA, KW |
| Web Views: | 513 |
| Downloads: | 456 |
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