Every morning at Lincoln Elementary, before announcements and birthdays and the Pledge of Allegiance, the whole school listens to music. Two or three minutes of it — usually instrumental. This week it's mbira, traditional music from Zimbabwe. Recently, it was jazz. Whoever the composer or performer of the week happens to be, students learn more about them when they come to Diana Kurasz's class later that day.

Kurasz has been teaching music at Lincoln for 23 years. Kindergarten, first, and second grade — a span that used to reach into third before the buildings were reorganized. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs, was teaching in Champaign-Urbana public schools, and came to Macomb when her husband was hired as a WIU professor. "Everyone was very welcoming," she said. "It just felt very homey."

She has been a musician since second grade. "It was joyful," she said. "So that was probably what led to this."

Down the hall, Lexi Kreps is in her second year teaching art. She's from Astoria — very small — and had the same art teacher from kindergarten through senior year. That relationship over thirteen years gave her a picture of what sustained, caring instruction could look like. "It's kind of fun to be full circle now," she said, "and get to be that for these kids here." She went to Western Illinois University for her art education degree, lives about fifteen minutes away in Adair, and came to Lincoln in June on a temporary hire that turned permanent. She said she can't imagine going anywhere else right now. "It's been wonderful for me — and I know that's not every first-year teacher's experience."

Her husband went to Lincoln as a kid, taught by Kurasz, before he moved to Astoria in fifth grade. He doesn't do much with music now, but he remembers learning his notes and enjoying the class. He doesn't remember Kurasz specifically — Kurasz herself said students may remember the experience more than the teacher: "I don't know if they'll necessarily remember us, but they'll remember the experience and what they got out of the activities." Lexi does remember. "When she gives me a compliment, it means the world," she said.

Both rooms operate on similar principles, even though the subjects are different. In a math class, there's a right answer. In an art room or a music room, students are experimenting — new materials, new instruments, and new techniques. Mistakes aren't failures; they're the process. "We try to create an environment where they can try new things," Kurasz said, "and skills that they maybe can't practice in other settings." Her own shorthand for the anxiety students bring: "It just takes more time. It's not too difficult. It just takes more time." Say it enough times, and students stop feeling pressured. They start finding it joyful.

The specials team at Lincoln — Kurasz, Kreps, and PE teachers Sam Cameron, Kurt Hickenbottom, and Dawn Torrance — functions without hierarchy. Lexi's first week, she was nervous, hadn't met them yet, and wasn't sure how things would work. "As soon as I did," she said, "it felt like family. It felt like I could ask them anything." That feeling runs in both directions. Just recently, Kurasz went to Lexi for advice on managing a student situation. Twenty-three years in, asking the second-year teacher. "I don't think anyone here thinks they have it figured out," Kurasz said. "I don't feel like there's a hierarchy."

Western Illinois University adds something too — psychology students who come in to help in classrooms, professors who push in, a pipeline of new teachers like Lexi who trained there and stayed nearby. Both women see it as a genuine asset, the kind that doesn't come automatically with a cornfield community.

Kurasz said she'd encourage any child to try something in a music ensemble. "It's where you make friends," she said, "and it's creative, but also intellectual." That combination — joy and rigor, creativity and discipline — is what both rooms are after. The mbira plays on through the intercom at 8 a.m., and a building full of kindergartners, first graders, and second graders listens.