Bring Music to Special Education with GITC!

Dear Supporter,

Thank you so much for all you have made possible for students and teachers in special education so far this year. We've already held three professional development workshops for special ed teachers and support service providers since January thanks to your generosity. Each one has included ukulele, chanting, singing, and creating meaningful lyrics for learning. But we've branched out to make sure every student is included by adding training on the Beamz Interactive Unit (video linked below), and making music using iPads, phones, and laptops.

These two music tech additions to our work are making music accessible for students with very limited fine motor and large motor coordination. This includes students with traumatic brain injury, paralysis, a wide range of medical issues, cerebral palsy, and more, where their fingers may be inflexible, their range of motion very limited, or where neurological injury has made it very hard to control or coordinate their limbs and digits. By waving a hand into a light beam, they can make or change music using the Beamz. And by touching or rolling a hand over a touch screen, they can trigger, or select musical sounds, instruments, and recordings to play in special ways. Both of these tech additions also give students a way to play together, to take turns, to share their ideas, and to make music for their classmates! These very normal developmental experiences can be hard to nurture in other ways, but music creates a natural basis for peer to peer relationship building.

Dozens of teachers have attended the first three workshops of the year, and we are hearing phenonmenal testimonials about the impact of this work on their students. We'll share one from special educatos Stacy N.B. in the photo section!

Thank you for making all of this work possible. Your contributions have paid for instruments, adaptive supplies, and for paying our brilliant instructors including the three who led the most recent event on a Saturday. It's quite inspiring that these very hard-working mod-severe teachers will give up a day of rest to come to teach and learn with GITC!

Let's keep this effort going together in 2023 and see how far music can go to make learning and life more joyful, successful, and creative for students in special education, and home and hospital settings! We're grateful that you're part of the solution.

Warmly, with appreciation for all you do,

Jess

Links:

• The Beamz!
• Our Website
• Our Facebook Page