Leland Brown, music teacher and coordinator for the Newport Public Schools in Newport, tries "to look closely at each student's ability and to encourage each student to progress at a rate that will be challenging but not impossible." Although Mr. Brown realizes full well that all students of music will not become professional musicians or music educators, he would like to impart to all of them an ability to enjoy and appreciate music in an informed way. For Mr. Brown music is "an integral part of life" that is necessary to everyone's personal and aesthetic development. Mr. Brown introduces material and ideas from other disciplines into his music classes in order to explore a more interdisciplinary approach to teaching. He has also invited students from special education classes to participate in performance ensembles. Mr. Brown would like to regain some of the territory in art education lost to recent budget cutbacks; he believes that any educational system that neglects the arts is at a great disadvantage.
