Discipline and Respect on Wellstone Elementary Dru

Sixteen at-risk elementary students at St. Paul’s Wellstone School are learning teamwork, discipline and respect – by banging on plastic buckets with “Mr. J.”

BY DOUG BELDEN

Pioneer Press

It’s moments before an all-school assembly at Wellstone Elementary in St. Paul one Friday in early December.

After weeks of practice, Wellstone’s drum line is debuting in front of the school, and the group has just finished warming up.

“You ready?” Mr. J asks James Shorter-Farrow, the only first-grader among the group of sixth-graders, who has to rest his plastic bucket on the floor because he’s too little to hold it between his legs.

James gives him a high-five. It’s time for Mr. J to make sure the rest of the drummers are set.

It’s a fairly short gig, in front of a familiar audience, but it’s an important test of how well these students at one of the city’s poorest grade schools have absorbed the lessons Mr. J has been teaching, not just about drumming but about life. Can they keep themselves under control? Can they pull the best out of themselves? Can they work as a team?

He turns to the 16 boys and girls seated in chairs against the wall of the gym and gives them a reminder they’ve heard many times before: “Everything you do right now is part of the performance.”

Mr. J is Jamal Abdur-Salaam, 31, behavior intervention specialist at Wellstone and a drummer since elementary school.

He is a big man with a calm manner and a smile that spreads slowly across his face. He wears baggy clothes and high-top Nikes. He has a lot of patience. He doesn’t get provoked.

For the second year in a row, as part of a school-wide effort to engage at-risk kids he has taken a group of students at the downtown school – which has among the highest percentage of low-income, minority and English Language Learner students of any elementary in the city – and taught them to play beats on the bottom of plastic buckets.

Part of what he does is prepare them to play in public – at the school assembly, at the Mall of America this year, and at noon Thursday at Town Square in St. Paul – but Mr. J is after “performance” of a larger kind.

In 40-minute practices two to three times a week in a music room at the back of the school, he uses the buckets to teach the students – several of whom come to the group because of behavior issues or academic struggles – about teamwork, discipline and respect.

He expects them to transfer those lessons to the rest of their day. And he makes it clear he’ll be watching. It’s like he’s made the eight-story school into a stage for them, and he’s always in the audience.

“I noticed that right away this morning,” he tells a boy who told the group he was proud of having helped a teacher. “Nice job.”

He asks another boy to explain what he was up to at recess that day. “I was watching you from the window. You and I will have to huddle a little bit after the group.”

STRICT, BUT FUN

Students who misbehave at Wellstone wind up spending time with Mr. J in his fourth-floor “Focus” room.

He says he’s pleased this year that referrals to the Focus room among drum line kids have fallen from 22 in October and 30 in November to nine so far in December. “I try to catch it before it gets to my room,” he says. Only one drum line student has been suspended this year, and there have been six one-day dismissals.

He’ll ask kids to put their sticks in the bucket if they can’t behave at practice, but they’re invited back after a beat or two. “We’re good without you. But we’re great with you,” he’ll say. “Are you ready to join the group now?”

Khalid Osman, who came to Wellstone last year from Kenya and got into several fights his first year at the school, says drum line has helped him “just take a deep breath and try to keep myself calm.”

Mr. J “knows where you’re coming from,” Khalid said. “He’s going to understand you.”

Nathan Willies is a bright student who emcees school events, serves on the student council, sings in the choir and helps out around the school in numerous ways. He says he is working with Mr. J on not talking back to teachers and not letting his mouth get him into trouble with classmates. He describes Mr. J as strict, but fun. “Everybody would like to be in drum line if they could,” Nathan says.

Daja Mayfield wanted to join after seeing the group perform last year. She said she liked “how they work together and how it was all one beat.” She says she struggles with math but loves reading, especially mysteries. She is working on controlling her anger, she says, in part by practicing listening and getting along with her fellow drum liners. She has also taken to her new instrument. “I try to drum on anything at home,” she says.

BRING IT TO LIFE

As a kid growing up in St. Paul, Mr. J used to carry around his sticks with him, and he’d keep a foot pedal in his backpack to play on trash bins. When he and a buddy won a talent contest at Ramsey Junior High, “it gave me an identity,” he says. “I don’t think I ever felt more connected to the school than that.” It’s that kind of connection he hopes to foster for the drum line kids – “that social bond in school … that makes them want to be here. I want them to take their school and get everything out of it that they possibly can,” he says.

Playing on buckets gave him a way to share his love of drumming with a lot of students for not much money. He spent about $140 at Menards to get all the equipment. The buckets don’t have the nuance or power of real drums, but they force the kids to be creative. “You’re going to make it what it is,” he says. “You’re going to get out of it what you put into it.” As he tells the students: “This is just a bucket and a set of sticks. When you play it, bring it to life.”

16 STUDENTS, ONE LINE

The all-school assembly goes well. Afterward, students hang around the drum line instead of leaving right away. Mr. J gathers his group before they head upstairs to class. You’ve got people interested, he tells them. You’ve given them a taste. You’re representing the drum line now. People see you, they know who you are. Then it’s time to line up. “I don’t want any problems in class, alright? … Let’s end the week on a good note. … We’re practicing transitions. I want one line.” He tells them what he expects on the stairs: no loud noises; no hopping, skipping or running; no pushing or tripping; no straying from the line. “I see a group. I don’t see a line,” he says as they make their way up to the eighth floor. As they pass by a landing, a teacher calls out: “Thanks, Mr. Jamal! Your team did great.”

Doug Belden can be reached at 651-228-5136.

– Doug Belden