Posted on Sun, Oct. 12, 2003 Teacher sees music as means to early learning BY MARY DIVINE Pioneer Press

Samson Den Lepcha looks like the Pied Piper as he leads a group of preschoolers through the woods behind St. Croix Academy.

But instead of a flute, Lepcha plays his guitar and sings songs about nature.

Lepcha, who has worked as a lead teacher in the primary program at the Montessori school in West Lakeland Township for five years, recently was named Washington County’s Center and School Age Child Caregiver of the Year.

Lepcha says learning at an early age — his students range from 3 to 6 — is critical. “Birth to 6 years old is the most important period of a person’s life,” he said. “All the brain development is taking place during those years, and you’re just building on top of it after that.”

In his home country of Bhutan, a kingdom in the eastern Himalayas, Lepcha served as an Educator for the Royal children and the children of expatriates in a Montessori setting. He graduated from the College of St. Nicholas in London, came to Minnesota in 1996 and earned his AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) from the Montessori Training Institute of Minnesota.

Lepcha, 29, of Stillwater, speaks six languages, paints and just released his first CD of children’s songs titled “The Gift of the Nature.” He recorded the children’s album in Bhutan this summer.

He often takes his students — all 23 of them — on hikes through the woods in the 11 acres the academy owns. On a gorgeous fall day last week, after they gathered eggs at the hen house, he and the children collected leaves and sang his song “Leaves are Falling Down.”

“Open your mouths, and sing it from inside,” Lepcha told the children. “Sing it from inside your tummy.”

The children — who know his lyrics by heart — skipped around a tree to sing the next song, “Turtle Bay.”

“I want to give children the impression that learning is fun,” Lepcha said. “We involve children, and we apply what they learn.”

Lepcha started writing children’s songs about five years ago because he didn’t like what he heard when he listened to other children’s albums. “The music that I checked out was not the kind of music that made sense,” he said.

He said his songs are meant to inspire the hearts and minds of children and celebrate the four seasons. “My songs are positive, joyful to sing and calming to the inner self,” he said.

“I’ve never met an educator like this man,” said Barbara Klas, a Woodbury resident whose 3-year-old son, George Jamison, is in Lepcha’s class. “Samson’s love of music and the natural world create a magical environment in which young children continue to be inspired.”

——————————————————————————– Mary Divine can be reached at mdivine@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5443.