Teaching technique and creating community
Above: UNIQUE VOICES: Clarke Central High School fine arts department teacher Naomi Su sits in Room 261 on Sept. 12. Su felt that encouragement is important to helping chorus students grow. “(Voice is) so personal because it's your instrument, and nobody's voices sound exactly the same. So I think it's really important to encourage people who love music to sing and to be proud of their voice,” Su said. “I don't think everybody has to be a prodigy at music. If you like doing it, that's enough to be able to do it. I think it's better to pull people in, work with where people are and help them improve from there.” Photo by Iliana Tejada
Clarke Central High School fine arts department teacher Naomi Su is new to the CCSD and aims to grow CCHS's chorus program throughout the 2025-26 school year.
Clarke Central High School fine arts department teacher Naomi Su, new to the Clarke County School District, hopes to expand the CCHS chorus program by teaching foundational skills and building connections with the Clarke Middle School and Burney Harris Lyons Middle School communities.
Su, a second-year teacher with a music education background, has replaced former CCHS fine arts teacher Shelynn Scott as the CCHS chorus teacher after being a fourth through sixth-grade English teacher at St. Joseph Catholic School in York, P.A. Su looks forward to teaching the Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced level chorus students, who all participate in the same third block class.
“My strategy for this year is (to) work with the (students) that I have, take them at the level that they're at and help them build their musicianship,” Su said. “I want them to learn how to read music, build their sight-singing and sight-reading skills and build (their singing) technique.”
This focus on fundamentals has already drawn students into the program. CCHS Beginning Chorus student Greta Stephens, a freshman, has experience singing through musical theater with the Triple Threat Musical Theatre Company at The Studio Athens, but joined the Beginning Chorus class to refine her skills.
“I've done (musical theater, but) I can't read sheet music well. I thought (Beginning Chorus) would be a good opportunity to advance that,” Stephens said. “(I want to) explore a different type of singing because musical theater is belting, (but chorus) is blending your voices into one harmony.”
Going forward, Su wants to expand CCHS’ chorus community by implementing strong foundations and more performance opportunities for current chorus students.
“(The chorus class has) a good group of (Beginning-level) freshmen this year. If these kids want to come back for future semesters, I'm hoping that the foundational skills (taught) this year will help (them) be role models to future kids coming in,” Su said. “I'd love to see if we can get this choir down to the middle schools to get them interested in (doing) choir in high school.”
Story by Margo McDaniel
Margo McDaniel is a senior and the Editor-in-Chief for the iliad Literary-Art Magazine at Clarke Central High School in Athens, Georgia. This year, she hopes to help creativity flourish at CCHS by giving student artists and writers a space to create, grow, and express themselves. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, listening to music, and spending time with friends and family.