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Ely Elementary’s Mattson named Pierce County Teacher of the Year

By Staff | May 5, 2023

For the second year in a row, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has named a Rugby music instructor as Pierce County Teacher of the year.

“It’s an honor to be nominated,” said Andee Mattson, who teaches music to students in kindergarten through sixth grade at Ely Elementary School. “There are so many great teachers in the Rugby School District. So, to be considered one of them is really great.”

“Thank you to whoever nominated me,” she said.

Mattson’s 2023 Pierce County Teacher of the Year Award follows the same award for 2022 given to Rugby High School instrumental music teacher Kari Hill.

“I just think that’s just wonderful,” Mattson said of the recognition for music teachers in Rugby.

“We have a really great music program in Rugby,” she said. “Kari Hill is wonderful. And so, to just be a part of that group is great.”

Mattson’s approach to music education extends beyond Ely Elementary School.

“Outside of school, I started a children’s choir for Village Arts, and I direct the Adult Community choir as well,” she said. “Whenever we have anything Village Arts-related, summer musicals or anything like that, I try to get involved with helping out with those. In the past, I have directed a few of the children’s musicals.”

“Anything I can do to get involved with the kids in the area and keep them involved with the music-making process, I do,” she said.

At school, Mattson involves students at all levels in music.

“I have kindergarten through sixth grade and then I also have a fifth and sixth grade choir that’s an elective,” she said.

“In kindergarten, it’s all about experiencing as much as we can – singing, dancing, playing the instruments,” she said. “They don’t realize they’re learning anything. It’s more just building that love of music and every time they come in here, getting excited about what they’re going to do for the day.”

“As they progress, each year, they have some type of music program, and that’s usually our big performance of the year,” she added.

Mattson’s young students begin to play musical instruments in their upper elementary years. Fourth graders learn how to play recorders, plastic instruments in the woodwind family that many parents remember from their own years as elementary students. Fifth graders learn to play ukuleles.

Beyond music

Mattson’s approach also extends beyond what most people think of music in schools.

In addition to teaching music, she serves as a coach for Ely Elementary School’s Lego League team. Each year, the team uses Lego building blocks, robots and computer coding to solve a problem. The teams present their projects at competitions in the local region and at the state level.

Mattson incorporates elements of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in her music classes.

“In sixth grade, it’s all project-based,” Mattson said of her upper-grade curriculum. “It’s just taking everything they’ve learned since kindergarten and finding, how can we use that in a real-world setting?”

“We build our own instruments,” she said. “We create our own songs using programming on the computer. We code.”

“The coding plays into my Lego background,” she added. “All of the sounds you hear on your appliances or your electronics – those are all coded sounds, too, and someone decided what those were going to sound like.”

“In our last project, the sixth graders took an everyday object and coded it to make sound. We’ve turned our stairs into a virtual piano,” she added.

“We find different ways to do things,” she said. “We use online music programs where they get to mix their own background tracks and write their own songs.”

Mattson said she felt glad music and the arts received recognition in Rugby schools.

Mattson said music and the arts together with the traditional reading and math in elementary education serve as “foundational skills for students.”

“Everything we do can build off the skills you learn in a music classroom,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be that you go on to become a musician or singer after you leave school. But the skills you learn in the classroom, teamwork, cooperation, practicing, all of that is a lifelong skill.”

In a statement released by the North Dakota DPI, State Superintendent of Schools Kirsten Baesler said, “Our county Teachers of the Year are among our best at educating the next generation of young North Dakotans. They impart knowledge in reading, math, science, and other subjects, and they do it with passion, empathy, imagination, and a spirit of service. They embody the best qualities of the teaching profession.”

Mattson said she looked forward to class activities in a new setting when a project to expand Ely Elementary School’s main building finishes, especially when her students learn to play drums.

“I’m excited for my new classroom, because the other teachers around me don’t like the drumming so much,” she said with a laugh. “It gets a little loud.”