New teachers are additions to a team dedicated to instructing students on how to encounter a certain subject. The new piano teacher this year, Mrs.Kelly Monroe-Hershey, has been teaching for 15 years and was a Band director for most of her teaching career, something she wanted to do since she was in eighth grade.

Even though this is her first year teaching at SHS, she says the people here have been great and the teachers have been really welcoming and understanding.

A modern addition to the originally traditional piano class is the final project, in which students will be constructing an electronic music composition that could be anything from techno music to trance music.

In class students will be learning about sociomusicology which is how music relates to people and the ways people use music to get a message across. During her classes, Monroe-Hershey says that a message she wants to emphasize is the appreciation of music.

“Music is everywhere and it is one of the most powerful ways people have conveyed emotion for hundreds and hundreds of years,” Mrs. Kelly Monroe-Hershey said. She says when people begin appreciating music that they may not even like, listening to will allow them to appreciate it and know what it was for and be able to find the artistic value in it.

She constantly tells her students that education is about getting to a point where information is not only being received but that it is also being used and incorporated with everyday life. It does not mean that everybody likes what they have to learn but learning is part of life.

As a teacher, she hopes that students will use the skills they learn more in life and for a long period of time and remember special, significant moments and be able to pass on those words because she says that is how people learn.