As Don DeVito walks toward his music classroom at Sidney Lanier School, he hears his name and turns toward the sound.
One of his colleagues walks toward him with a student, Lyndon, beside her.
“It’s Lyndon’s birthday,” the teacher says.
Lyndon thrusts his arms in front of him, motioning as if he were holding a pair of drumsticks. DeVito smiles and makes a drumming motion too, and Lyndon smiles at him.
DeVito makes the sign for ‘happy birthday.’ Lyndon is 95 percent deaf and has cerebral palsy, so this is the clearest way to congratulate him on turning 20.
Lyndon returns to air drumming. DeVito pounds the air with an improvised drumbeat of his own — their own personal form of communication.
DeVito, who received his Ph.D. in music education from UF, has taught Lyndon for about seven years. While he may not be a typical drummer, Lyndon has been practicing on his own set since he was seven.
“He can only sign five words, but he can do this,” DeVito said of Lyndon’s talent for drumming.
In May 2010, DeVito even took him to play at Carnegie Hall. Lyndon was one of about 10 students who were able to go along with other musicians in the ensemble.
Due to his work as music director at Sidney Lanier, DeVito was given the Council for Exceptional Children’s national teacher of the year award for 2011, also known as the Clarissa Hug Award.
As part of this honor, he will be the organization’s spokesman for the next year, giving speeches and even talking to members of Congress about special education issues.
He heard the news while at a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s with his wife, Wendy. Standing outside the restaurant as he heard the news by phone, he couldn’t help but bounce up and down eagerly.
“You would have thought the Gators scored a touchdown and won a championship,” he said.
DeVito has worked at Sidney Lanier for about a decade, giving his students an understanding of music that they can build upon each day. He uses tools like Skype, an online video service that can connect people whether they are a room away or an ocean apart, to introduce his students to other music teachers and students across the globe.
They teach his students new songs and present class performances from a continent away.
For DeVito, teaching is about the little things. When a boy who originally couldn’t grasp a drumstick learns how to play a steady beat, or a girl who has trouble speaking starts to sing her her favorite song, he feels like he is making a difference.
“It’s (about) looking for the minute in a different way, but to me it’s all the more rewarding,” he said.
DeVito walks up to Evelyn, a brown-haired girl with glasses and a gray sweatshirt embroidered with red and blue hearts.
“This morning we had some swing music, right, some Duke Ellington?” he asks the class.
His students decide that they would like to play the drums along with Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” DeVito starts the music and grabs a portable drum.
As Evelyn holds one drumstick and DeVito grasps the other, they pound the drum in tandem.
DeVito sits close to her, adding a few extra hits to liven up the beat as Evelyn drums along with him. Then he gently takes the drumstick from her, tells her she did a great job and offers her a high five.
