Mr. Haertel’s Heart for Teaching

By: Gavin McClean

March 30, 2021

When most people think of playing in a high school band, they think that it is just learning the music and playing it, nothing more. Mr. Haertel is someone who does not buy into that view of band and believes that there is so much more that could and should be done.

“I feel like music teachers are stuck in the past, I want students to enjoy other things about music other than playing and practicing; kids want to do other things like make music, listen to it, etc,” he said.

Haertel is constantly finding ways of making music so much more for students than just another responsibility they have.

“What right do I have to say that if you don’t practice an hour a day then you are trash?” he asked.

His passion for music and teaching kids goes all the way back to when he attended college and he first discovered the feeling of teaching.

“I found it so rewarding when the kids finally got something and were proud of themselves,” he said

That passion led him to being able to talk to students about the many ways that music can be connected to other hobbies and aspects of life.

“I have spoken with students who are really interested in math and science, and have talked about the acoustics and physics of music, if you have a student who likes sports you can talk about the physical parts of music like how you have to train your muscles to be able to remember and play certain parts of music,” he said.

Finding ways to make students want to play more and have fun while doing it is something that Mr. Haertel takes great pride in. Being a former student, I can recall the times that he would bring a new energy to the band room. In class we would partake in activities such as competitions between each section of the band to see who could play the best, we would listen to music each morning, and Mr. Haertel would have these events called “Beyonce Fridays” which was a class dedicated to teaching us about a certain music group or songs history and how the music impacted the world.

Although Mr. Haertel always enjoys having fun, he still has hard work to do while in the class and he always had a way of showing what he wanted to get done without even saying it.

On days that were considered “casual”, we would play and work on the pieces with not much detail, just to see how it sounded together; he would wear more comfortable clothes including his classic cardigan outfit. On days where we would go into great detail with each individual part of the music and really get things done, he would always wear a variety of colorful button ups.

Outside of band, Mr. Haertel is the Co-advisor/director of CCHS’s drama club Line N’ Cue and is the Faculty Advisor of the GSA group for CCHS. The GSA is the Gay-Straight-Alliance group the CCHS has and is something that Mr. Haertel is very passionate about it. Through his younger years, he had to hide the fact that he was Gay to his school, friends and even his family. It was very hard for him to be ready to come out due to the great amount of Homophobia during that time period and there were no clubs like the GSA for him to be a part of where he could get support.

Mr. Haertel finds it important that students have a place to stay and feel comfortable during the day. He believes that the band room is a great place where students can stay during their free time and sometimes talk to him about life.

I happened to be one of those students who would head to the band room instead of staying in the cafeteria or any other room during a free period. I would go there just to practice or find a more quiet place but I recall others going in there to talk to Mr. Haertel and just talk about what they were going through in life and how they were doing.