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Arts & Entertainment

An Apple For The Teacher

P.S. 58 music teacher Stephen Cedermark is honored with a Blackboard Award.

Talk about a class act.

Last night, ’s lower music teacher Stephen Cedermark received a Blackboard Award for excellence in education. Presented by Manhattan Media, Fordham University and hosted by Master of Ceremonies, NBC News Correspondent Kate Snow, Cedermark was one of only 18 Blackboard Award honorees out of 1,200 nominations received from parents and fellow educators all over the city.

Cedermark, who teaches music to pre-kindergarteners through second graders and directs the 2nd and 3rd grade chorus, is adored by both peers and parents for the time he takes with each child and because he doesn’t dumb down music for the lower grades he teaches. The kids enjoy equal parts Il Travatore and Katy Perry, all the while absorbing digestible bits of music theory that link the two.

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With Cedermark, who said the most rewarding part of his job is working with kids, it’s apparent that his students take center stage.

“I love watching the kids filter in through the lobby, smiling and speaking with each other, and coming up and sharing with me anything that might be on their mind in that moment," he said. "Whether it be what they ate for breakfast or a musical discovery they may have made the night before.”

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As the threat of considerable budget cuts loom over public schools like a menacing funnel cloud, Cedermark says this award couldn’t have come at a better time.  

“It means that despite the negative press and publicity that teachers are receiving as of late, there are public schools in NYC that are thriving, and that these schools and their teachers should be celebrated,” he said.

But it also means arts programs could be seen as expendable.

“Children's creativity needs to be nurtured, appreciated and respected, and I strongly believe that any effective arts program maintains this philosophy,” said Cedermark. “A music classroom in particular offers a creative context through which students can discover parts of themselves that they may have other wise not known existed, and facilitates the development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills that they need in order to succeed in both the general education settings and as social beings.”

Cedermark came to P.S. 58 two years ago after spending his first year teaching at a school in Spanish Harlem. A New York native, Cedermark’s family moved to North Carolina in his teens. When it came time for college, he returned to study performing arts at New York University. A stint as a tutor with America Reads revealed his calling, and Cedermark attended Teacher’s College at Columbia University to fulfill his destiny.

So what’s Cedermark’s personal favorite song he taught his students? “Empire State of Mind,” by Jay-Z.

“This was perhaps one of the most transformative moments of my career, because the pure message of the song is my dream for every child I teach and learn from; that they leave school everyday knowing that there is nothing that they can't do, no matter who they are or where they come from," he said. "My own parents continue to remind me of this almost every day, and so I feel it is my job to do the same.”

If the roaring applause from the many who turned out to support Cedermark was any indication, he’s doing that job well.

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