Holly Hinchley is an elementary school music teacher for Porter Lakes Elementary School and Boone Grove Elementary schools. Her passion for music began when she was in second grade and she has been spreading joy through music ever since.
“I started taking piano lessons back when I was in second grade. Then, when I moved into middle school, they offered orchestra and that's when I started playing the cello,” Hinchley said.
Hinchley grew up in South Haven, Indiana, and went to Portage schools. This was where she met the person who would deeply inspire her to become a music teacher.
“I fell in love with the way my middle school teacher taught. Her name was Cindy Schnabel,” Hinchley said. “I knew after being in her class that I wanted to be a music teacher; I wanted to be like her, so I got to help out by being a student aid for her. That was always a lot of fun.”
After being inspired to become a music teacher, Hinchley made the decision to move out of the Region and continue her education at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. During her time in college, she had a very heavy workload due to the encouragement from her parents to graduate in four years.
“I went in as a music education major. It was very impressed upon me by my parents that I needed to get done in four years. Typically, a lot of times the music or the arts part of things usually can take five years or a little bit longer. I was usually taking the full course load of 18 credit hours every semester, so it was pretty busy,” said Hinchley.
Toward the end of Hinchley’s college years, she had decided to move back home after graduation because of financial reasons. At the end of her senior year, she was able to attend a job fair at Indiana State University that gave her a perfect job opportunity.
“What was funny was there was a job fair when I was down at school, and it was actually Valparaiso schools. Valparaiso Community Schools was there, and they happened to need music teachers,” Hinchley said. “I did my really quick interview there because they were just seeing candidates, and I was doing a lot of practice interviews. I ended up fully applying when I came back home. My first teaching job was actually in Valpo.”
After Hinchley worked for Valparaiso Community Schools for five years, she began working at Porter Township Schools. She has been working at Porter Lakes Elementary School and Boone Grove Elementary School for seven years now.
“Porter Lakes Elementary is a K-3 elementary school, and then Boone Grove is the fourth and fifth-grade building. I spend three days a week at Porter Lakes and two days a week over at Boone Grove,” Hinchley said. “A lot of music teachers travel because that's kind of how they make scheduling work a lot of times. It's definitely something I had to get used to because, at my first job, I got to stay in one building all of the time.”
Regardless of location, Hinchley emphasized how much fun she has while teaching her students.
“My favorite part of teaching elementary music is that we have a lot of fun. It is still teaching, and a lot of them don't realize that's what's going on, but we have a lot of fun playing games, playing instruments, and singing,” she said. “I don't care if they become professional musicians. That's really not the point of my job. The point of my job is that they can sing lullabies to their babies when they have families, if they go to a wedding, they can dance, and when they go to a sporting event I want them to be the ones who clap on the beat.”
According to Hinchley, teaching music to elementary students is not necessarily about getting the students to move on with a career in music, but to have an appreciation for music. She puts the emphasis of her teaching on a love for music.
“We've been told as music teachers that only 10% of your kids go on to do orchestra, band, and choir, but they're all going to do things in life where they enjoy music. That's what I want for them. I don't want to just teach the 10%; I need to teach all of them, and I just want them to go away with a love for music,” Hinchley said.
Hinchley’s job allows her to teach students to love and appreciate music for the rest of their lives and how appreciating music makes people better members of their communities.
“I think a lot of people have forgotten that music is a community thing. In the sense that, if you go back years before radio, how did we entertain ourselves? People sang together. They made music together. We didn't leave it to the professionals to do this,” Hinchley said. “If you remember — this made my heart so happy — when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, you could hear the crowd singing 'Go Cubs Go' from blocks away. None of them were professional musicians, but they were so happy and what was the community thing that they did? They sang.”
Music brings people closer to one another. Hinchley emphasizes the importance of teaching students to be comfortable producing their own music in the classroom and to not be afraid to sing along and enjoy music with no fear of being judged.
“I am hoping that we start becoming music producers without the fear of, ‘someone's going to judge how I sing or how I play,’ and enjoy each other through music as opposed to just consuming it. We consume a lot of media and music, but we also have the ability to make it,” Hinchley said. “I hope that more people get involved in their community when it comes to music. We have some great opportunities here in Northwest Indiana. Go out, enjoy, have fun, and share that with your kids and families and have a good time.”