Get to Know Mrs. Lucas

Music has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember.  Throughout my childhood, my dad would play the accordion or the guitar and sing to me and my younger brother.  I started singing in choirs and studying the piano in elementary school, and by the time I got to high school I was singing in and accompanying the choirs.  I continued my music studies as a college student at Southeast Missouri State University.  One of the most memorable experiences for me was singing in Southeast's performance of Karl Orff's Carmina Burana.  These unforgettable experiences shaped my love for music and my desire to share it with children.

My interest in music and teaching led me to pursue a degree in Music Education from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where I studied voice and piano and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1995.  I graduated summa cum laude with a Master of Arts degree from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, in 2007.  I have completed training in Level I of the Kodaly method of music education and Level I and Level II, and Level III of the Orff-Schulwerk method of music education. I'm an active member of the St. Louis chapter of the American Orff Schulwerk Association.

The fall of 2016 will begin my twenty-second year of teaching music in the public school system of Missouri.  It is my nineteenth at Pheasant Point Elementary in the Fort Zumwalt School District, which opened its doors in the 1998-1999 school year.  It brings me true joy to share something that's been such a big part of my life with such a great group of kids.

In addition to teaching music, I am a wife and mother to two beautiful children, my son Ian, who is 14 years old, and my daughter Meaghan, who is 8  They keep me busy and I especially enjoy the school breaks when I get to spend more time with them.  While music is my passion, in my spare time I enjoy figure skating, taking Zumba classes, reading, scrapbooking, and card making.  I've also been known to sew and create birthday cakes just for fun.

My Teaching Philosophy

I believe that music has intrinsic value and every child has a human need for music as a basis for knowing, experiencing, and understanding themselves and the world around them.  Music encompasses many aspects of human life and the world in which we live.  Just as reading and writing help to develop a child's ability to think and communicate, performing and creating music help to develop  a child's ability to feel and sense.  While music instruction brings with it a variety of non-musical benefits such as aiding cognition and academic ability, the study of music for its own sake is essential to the development of children into expressive human beings.  I firmly believe that active music-making is the most beneficial way for children to learn.  Learning through play is a natural part of childhood that has been somewhat forgotten and the music class is the ideal medium for playful, meaningful learning activities that engage the child's heart, mind, and soul.

                                                                      Making sweet sounds in a
                                                                      Universal language as we
                                                                       Sing from the heart with
                                                                       Instruments in hand
                                                                       Creating beauty together.

"Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead." 
 -Benjamin Disraeli



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Updated 1/6/17 JL