Kentucky Teacher

Nawanna Privett is sworn in by Judge Phillip Shepherd as a member of the Kentucky Board of Education during their meeting in Frankfort, Ky. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 6, 2012

Last week, Kentucky Teacher introduced newly-appointed Kentucky Board of Education member Leonel (Leo) Calderón.

This week, we turn out attention to the second board appointment made by Gov. Steve Beshear this summer, Nawanna Privett – a 42-year educator from Lexington who represents Supreme Court District 5 on the board.

Nawanna Barton Privett is facilitator for the Kentucky Education Action Team after retiring as a teacher, principal (including Southern Elementary, a National Blue Ribbon School) and central office director in the Fayette County school district. She served as an early Kentucky Department of Education distinguished educator, director of the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development and first state director of the Kentucky Leadership Academy and CEO Superintendents Network.

A native of Cumberland, Ky., Privett earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and Rank I in administration from the University of Kentucky. Currently, she is co-chair of UK Women & Philanthropy, elder at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church and member of the UK College of Education Board of Advocates, the Partnership for Successful Schools Board and Women Leading Kentucky Board of Directors. Privett and her husband, Dr. George Privett, have five children and two grandchildren. Continue Reading

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Students at South Warren Middle School (Warren County) use the SmartMusic program during class in the spring of 2011. Photo by Don Sergent/Warren County Public Schools

Formal training in how to play a musical instrument usually involves playing scales – and as long as students have been learning to play instruments, students have hated playing scales.

Magan Collar, assistant band director at Drakes Creek Middle and Greenwood High schools (Warren County) had just such a student last year. He simply didn’t like to practice his chromatic scale, and he came to band class every day and got it wrong, she said.

So Collar put him in the practice room adjacent to the band room and told him to practice.

“When I came back, he had practiced it over a hundred times,” she said.

That’s because the student was not practicing alone. He was using a software program called SmartMusic in which he could see the music on a computer screen, play along with it, slow it down, record himself and see a percentage of correct notes he got each time he practiced. Continue Reading