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When the teachers at John Muir Elementary School have a message they want to deliver loud and clear to students they’re apt to break into song. 

“I know that I can still remember songs that I learned when I was a kid, so I know that’s a good way to get kids to remember,” reflected John Muir second grade teacher Kristine Fowler, after an assembly Tuesday where Principal Nancy D. Waters and teacher-musicians led the students through a series of songs in commemoration of Music in Our Schools Month. 

Musical assemblies are a common occurrence at Muir, where Waters – a music teacher for many years before she shifted to the administrative side – has actually composed a song to reinforce some of the “life skills” featured in the school’s curriculum. 

“By having this boogie-woogie kind of song that they can relate to” elementary students are able to remember words like responsibility, respect and cooperation, Waters said, so when a teacher talks about these concepts the students aren’t caught by surprise. 

John Muir’s 250 students didn’t need much prompting Tuesday to break into a enthusiastic rendering of Waters’ song, entitled “Team Esteem”. 

“Together we can do it. We’ll strive for success. We’ll grow in character. We’ll pass the test,” they sang, as Waters played a base saxophone she keeps in a cradle by the door of her office.  

Other songs in the assembly were designed to teach, entertain and energize all at once. After hearing a lecture about California labor leader Cesar Chavez – who will be honored by a state holiday this Friday – students sang in Spanish a song that Mexican migrant farm labors might have sung while working in the fields. 

During a talk about the importance of recycling, the teachers chanted the word R-E-C-Y-C-L-E and the students chanted back. 

“The more animated and excited we are the more they pick it up,” said Kat King, an English Language Development teacher at John Muir who played piano at Tuesday’s assembly. 

The only thing John Muir’s 250 students seemed to struggle with Tuesday was deciding if they wanted to sing, dance or sign language (because the school includes several hearing impaired children, all students are taught basic sign language). Most students ended up doing a variation of all three. 

“Signing and singing helps their reading because a lot of the signs start with the first letter of the word,” said John Muir kindergarten teacher Anne Donker. 

“You’re touching more than one kind of intelligence or sense, and it really makes the information so much more accessible,” King said of the singing assemblies. 

“Every year we do it and everybody just feels so good.”