TEACHER'S CORNER: SHIRLEY COOPER TEACHES MUSIC AT WOODLAND IN MARBLE HILL

MARBLE HILL -- Music teacher Shirley Illers Cooper instructs her students first to work together, then to work independently.

"You learn to work together, to blend your voices as one for unison songs," Cooper said. "The students must listen, pay attention and follow directions in order to perform.

"After learning unity they learn to separate and perform parts but still work as one group."

Cooper has been teaching 34 years. She teaches kindergarten and first graders and fourth through junior high students at Woodland Schools in Marble Hill.

Cooper said music allows students an opportunity to use different skills.

"Many times a student that has trouble in a regular classroom can succeed, even excel, in music or art," she said.

Cooper said the culmination of her year's work is a spring concert.

"All the students perform," she said. "Not just the `exceptional' students."

"When they work hard and the first time they are able to perform a hard selection or tricky portion and do so, they become so excited," Cooper said.

She also enjoys the effort students put into impressing parents with their skill.

Cooper said she never questioned her vocation. "My parents always said, `When you go to college and become a teacher.' My decision was what field and what kind of teacher."

But teaching techniques have changed since she started in the classroom.

"Games, tapes, film strips, videos, computers are all used now," said Cooper. "Today's students are oriented to seeing and hearing. Attention spans are shorter. A teacher today must use all kinds of visuals as well as audios tape accompaniments, keyboards and last of all the good ol' piano to keep the attention and interest of the students."

Cooper doesn't blame the youngsters. She says they have lots of obstacles to overcome, including "society, lack of family support in many cases, peer pressures and money."

She said, "I often wonder how students do as well as they do when you consider all the pressures and problems. I try and think that music helps them to succeed and to release some of their frustrations as well as teaching them to work together for enjoyment and success in performance."

Cooper is a member of the Missouri State Teachers Association, the Woodland CTA and PTO and Beta Gamma Chapter, Alpha Delta Kappa.

In addition to her work at school, Cooper served as the first mayor of the consolidated city of Marble Hill. She held office from November 1986 until April 1992.

She is a member and ordained elder of the Lutesville Presbyterian Church. She and her late husband, Gary, have one son, Kevin.