Bringing students together through music and poetry. MAPS, or Music and Poetry Synchronized, connects middle and high school students in different states.
One school will write poems and send them to another school, where those students turn them into songs. Then, both schools come together for an end-of-year concert.
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WATCH HEREOn Friday, Great Path Academy in Manchester, part of the Hartford Public School District, was home to one of those performances.
"I believe it helps connect the two schools together, for those who are poets and those who are musicians. It brings them together to see what type of combination we can do with them both," said Great Path Academy Senior Jayden Ankrah.
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SIGN UP The program started in 2005, bringing together students from schools in Harlem, New York and Western Massachusetts. In the last five years, the program expanded to Connecticut, Rhode Island, and schools as far as Puerto Rico.
Ankrah and his peers sang poems written by students from Easthampton, Mass. Those students got to see their work performed in the form of a song.
"It's a really fun day to watch and get to meet some people, and I actually got to meet some people today who are doing my poems, so I got to talk to them about that, which is really interesting," said Devin O'Brien, sophomore at Easthampton High School.
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The program is not only about music and poetry. It's also an opportunity for students to share experiences and topics that matter most to them.
"So, coming-of-age topics like finding themselves, their identity or things in the world that they would like to work to make better," said Laura Gray, Music Teacher at Great Path Academy.
Gray is also the MAPS program coordinator in Connecticut. Right now, there are five MAPS programs in Hartford Public Schools, banding students together...all over the map.
MAPS Co-Founder and Executive Director Tom Willits was at Great Path Academy to see the performance in person to support students and their work.
"I'm just as committed today as I was 18 years ago, and I think we're a lot better at it," said Willits.
