The bell marks the start of fifth period and the beginning of the Adaptive Music class for some Whitman students. Nine students and one teacher-helper sit in the band room as a single note sounds from a xylophone to signal the class’s start. Three student-teachers stand in front of the room’s Promethean board and cue the music staff software.

In the 2023-2024 school year, current seniors Nomi Bortnick and Allison Khani created the Adaptive Music class to help provide every student with a music education. Senior Jasper Huang joined them as a co-teacher during the first year of the class.

Adaptive music is part of the Learning for Independence program (LFI), which Whitman and 11 other Maryland high schools offer. The LFI program is designed to teach life skills to students with “significant cognitive disabilities,” allowing them to participate in learning environments with their peers. Adaptive Music is the most recent addition to the program, and the teachers hope to expand it to other LFI programs in the county.

Whitman’s LFI program offers English, Math, History and includes art and physical education electives. When they were sophomores, Khani and Bortnick both served as student-teachers for the PE class, however, they decided to create a music class to fill the gap in the adaptive elective options at Whitman.

“We’ve all been playing music for as long as we can remember and we saw that there was a group of students at Whitman who didn’t have access to learning music,” Khani said. “It was important to us that there was an equal opportunity to learn music for everybody at this school.” 

Research shows that music education has many benefits for children and adults, including increased neural connections in the brain and a boost in mental health. 
For Khani, the benefits go beyond learning notes and rhythms. 

“Similar to learning a new language, learning music is good for you in every way,” Khani said. “It teaches you how to think and creates new pathways.” 

The class currently focuses on reading notes and rhythms. Students practice deciphering the treble clef using xylophones modified to fit their needs. Bortnick writes notes on the board and each student takes turns playing a measure or two before switching. Since students have varying musical experience and skill levels, the student-teachers ensure everyone plays the measures correctly before moving on. 

When teaching rhythms, Bortnick uses her own system known as the “fruit rhythms;” Eighth notes are “apples” due to the word’s two syllables, quarter notes are “grapes” and half notes are “watermelons.” After creating their fruit salads of music, students play them on their xylophones. In his time with the class, Huang has seen significant improvements in the students’ musical abilities.

As an adaptive class, the student-teachers respect that students require different teaching approaches. For instance, some students learn better with color-coded sheet music, while others prefer working with pitches rather than rhythms. For Bortnick, that’s the beauty of the class. 

“There’s not one system that works for all students,” Bortnick said. “They all have different needs, and you have to adapt to those. It makes it more challenging, but it also makes it more fun.” 

In addition to xylophones, the class utilizes other adaptive musical instruments, including drums made of bright orange Home Depot buckets and boom whackers — colorful tubes fitted to play a specific note when hit against a hand. 

Sometimes, the classes are less about producing music and more about appreciating it. On special occasions, students enjoy popular songs from the band room’s speakers and get to play along on their xylophones. 

Bortnick, Huang and Khani stressed the importance of the class continuing after they graduate this year.

“Music is something that should be offered for every student, and to keep this [class] going, it’s going to need some student leaders that are willing to step up,” Khani said.

This story was originally published on The Black & White on March 12, 2025.