Creators, Makers, and Doers: Marguerite Lawrence

Posted on 8/25/15 by Arts & History

A passion for music led to a 32-year career educating local youth. Marguerite Lawrence dedicated herself to teaching elementary school students about music and the importance of “keeping their ears open.” She credits her success to community support and finding opportunities for her students to sing in unlikely places. Marguerite’s skill at writing children’s songs that integrated curriculum helped create relevant and unique educational opportunities for her students. She will be honored for Excellence in Arts Education at the biennial Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts on September 10.

What is your role in the community?

I was a music teacher in all but two years in my 32-year career in Idaho. For most of it, 26 years, I have been in Boise. I went to the College of Idaho and I went and taught in Canyon School District, the Caldwell School District, Blaine County School District. My entire career has been in elementary schools as a general music teacher or as a general music teacher and orchestra teacher. My last three years was just as a 5th and 6th grade orchestra teacher.

My love of teaching also goes right alongside my love for writing. When I first started teaching, there were no children’s musicals out there that I felt were something that could teach the kids something other than rather inane things. So, I started writing when I was living in Ketchum, which is a real arts community. I started writing children’s musicals and having my students perform them. I really found my niche, my love of being able to create. I was able to create and put it in front of the students and I could tell if they didn’t like it, then I would shelf it or go back to the drawing board. I did that and then realized that I could write and contribute to the curriculum by writing about history, science, ecology, animals. I really focused on that when I was in Boise. I wrote an endangered species musical and that was so much fun because I could look into the curriculums of all of the grades and find what countries they were studying and find an animal that was an endangered animal in that country. It fed into the curriculum where a classroom teacher would never have the time to include the material. So that is what I did for most of my career.

Can you articulate what the importance of music in schools is?

I don’t think it necessarily has to be performance based, but I think that music for all of us is about listening to something, and finding something that you like. I also believe that it is so much part of the world that it is important for children to never close their ears, or at least start young and not close their ears to any of it. I think that if you keep your ears open to music, art and reading, then you keep your ears open to varying opinions and you keep your ears open to the world. I really feel that.

How long did you teach for?

Thirty-two years. I often say that I was blessed. I never thought that I was going to be a music teacher. When I went to college I was a violinist. Even then, I knew I wasn’t going to be good enough to make a living that way. I did think that maybe I would be a conductor.

I went to the College of Idaho and I had the most amazing music faculty there… anybody did who was there between the 1960s through the late 1980s. The faculty was unbelievable; they did not belong in Caldwell, Idaho. How the college got them is a miracle. We had Julliard graduates, Oberlin graduates, my violin teacher, Walter Servainy, was this absolute amazing man. He had to move to the West from the East for his health at a young age. He and his wife were both music faculty at the college and he was the most amazing violin teacher. He would say “Marguerite, you have to sing while you play.”

All of my teachers gave me everything I know about teaching. They were all just fountains of knowledge. So, somehow they tricked me, without me knowing, and they put me into the education track. I never thought that I would be a teacher; I never gave it a thought. I didn’t know I was nurturing and I didn’t know that’s what I wanted to do ever, until I started doing it and I got it. It was great. It was fun. I have to thank my teachers. My parents always encouraged me musically, but never as a teacher. They never thought that would happen for me either. Things happen sometimes.

Even though you are retired, you are still staying busy?

Oh yeah. People say they are so worried of being bored when they retire and I have never had a bored day in my life. I have never been bored. I just can’t imagine how sad that must be. I think that having my days now frees me up to do more creative stuff and have the energy to do it. By the time I chose to retire, it was just time for me. There was a switch that clicked and said move on, and go somewhere else. There are things in education that are very challenging for all of us teachers and administrators. When Common Core came in and I was in the position to retire, I figured I would just leave it to the younger crowd so I could do what I love.

What are you working on right now?

I have kind of changed my road. I am not writing children’s music right now, but I am writing fiction. I have kind of gone into the adult world. I have always loved to write, but I have never had time. It was such a natural fit to write music for children while I was teaching. They were my writing group, my critics. So a few years ago, The Cabin offered a summer adult camp. I decided to see what it was about and I loved it. I had so much fun for that week going in every morning and just getting prompts and writing. Christian Winn who is a local author and professor, an amazing writer, was the boss of me that week. Eventually, that fall, I joined his writing group, it’s called Writers Write, and we meet every Tuesday evening. So, I am writing fiction, short stories. I had my first story published in the Boise Weekly’s 101 Short Story Competition. I am now getting published for the second time by The Cabin, a short story called “Jersey.” That comes out in the anthology in September. It is so exciting. I don’t really care about the publishing, I only published one musical while I wrote, but that end of it doesn’t interest me so much as just knowing that I am getting better at it. There is a definite learning curve when writing fiction. I am getting better. After two years I feel like I can better recognize where I need to improve. The writing group has been really helpful and it is a blast. I love it.

How would you explain to your students, the importance of music?

The importance is that music is everywhere in our lives and the more you open your ears to it the less afraid you are of it and the less turned off you are by it. Keep your ears open.