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Accentuate positive gifts of young expression

By David Waters
waters@commercialappeal.com

At the beginning of his summer camp in South Memphis, Skylar couldn’t make up his mind.

He loves percussion. He loves the timbre of the tenor, the boom of the bass, the rumble of the drum line.

But he’d been in the percussion group for three straight years at Stax Music Academy’s summer camp, starting at age 7. Maybe it was time for him to learn something new, expand his horizons, follow in the footsteps of his mother, who had been involved in theater at school.

"I was on the edge of drama," said Skylar Lester, who at age 10 is constantly on the edge of self-discovery.

His mother, Shirley Andrews, is hoping to get Skylar enrolled in the Soulsville Charter School. She has seen her baby become more confident and focused in his four years at Stax’s summer camp.

"They have given him and all these other children an opportunity to be part of something special, something positive, a place to use their gifts," Andrews said.

"All children have gifts."

How easy it is to forget that, especially when we see and hear so many negative images of youths -- African-American males in particular.

Truth is, for every kid who becomes a "gangster" -- and this was true when most "gangsters" were young white males, like Memphis’ own George ’Machine Gun’ Kelly -- there are hundreds, thousands who are working hard to overcome tremendous personal obstacles and do the right thing.

We need to pay more attention to those kids and find ways to support them.

That’s what the teachers and counselors at Stax are trying to do.

"The Stax Music Academy is fully committed to the pursuit of helping potentially at-risk children and youths, using music education and performance as a conduit of learning, character edification, improving social skills, and fun," Ashley Keith Davis, the academy’s artistic director, explained.

In other words, all children have gifts and all children need help finding positive ways to express their gifts.

Skylar keeps looking for new ways to express his gifts. So at camp this summer he decided to learn something new, expand his horizons, take on a new challenge.

He volunteered to play the cymbals, which in Skylar’s hands constitute a form of dramatic percussion. Skylar doesn’t just play the cymbals, he performs them. When the cymbals are in his hands, he’s not just in the band, he’s leading the band.

"You can lead the drum line, get wild, get down, get low, show your stuff," he said.

His percussion teacher, Marvin Morgan, taught him how to hold the cymbals and keep time and his focus. A friend taught him how to twist and twirl the cymbals. He already knew about to twist and twirl himself. He didn’t get the camp’s Wiggle Award for nothing.

"Skylar is a doll," said Jackie Peters, the academy’s operations manager.

"The other day they were outside practicing in the sweltering heat. The entire drum line was standing in the shade, but Skylar was out in front, in the sun, sweating bullets and giving it 110 percent. He works so hard."

Wednesday evening, Skylar got his chance to show his stuff at SNAP! 2006, the summer camp’s Grand Finale Concert at the Orpheum. So did his 222 summer camp mates in grades 3-8.

Backstage, as the campers waited eagerly, anxiously for the curtain to open, they could hear the audience waiting eagerly, anxiously for them to emerge.

"Yeah, we got a crowd," said Skylar, confidently clutching his shiny cymbals, ready to establish his presence on center stage.

"We’re ready."


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