Exceptional Learners Deserve Music, Too!

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for supporting GITC's efforts this year to make musical learning an empowering experience for students with special needs. We are glad to let you know that teachers with GITC are busy including music in their special ed classrooms this year in San Diego, California and Clay and Charleston, West Virginia, our pilot locations. We also look forward to including teachers in our Whidbey Island, WA and Loveland, Colorado programs in the work as well by next month.

You may have chosen to support this project because you care deeply about a young person in your life who learns differently and experiences challenges with traditional education. I hope this project brings you a sense of hope. As we work on a relavtively small scale to make thoughtful improvements through music in our most engaged classrooms, it is my intention that we develop a model that others can learn about in time. Perhaps one day in the near future, any special educator or classroom teacher differentiating instruction will have the GITC examples by which to begin to enrich their instruction and classroom community for all learners through hands-on music. In addition, this model can help regular educators who are teaching students with special needs who are mainstreamed into their classes.

The fact is that this project is especially important because most special ed and general ed teachers don't get any music training during their graduate level credentialing programs. And general educators also don't get enough training in working effectively with students with extreme special needs. This project you are supporting addresses both problems. We are individualizing teacher instruction through music so that both special and general educators can do the same thing for their students! And we are offering the training for free on an ongoing basis.

Our goal with this project is to continue to bring this important "differentiated" training to the teachers who are most motivated to make music a part of their students' learning experiences.We are also getting feedback from the teachers to understand the impact of music for their students. Hopefully you will continue to give to this project so we can achieve these goals.

Because autism is so present in our schools, we have chosen to address the needs of autistic students first this school year.  About 1 percent of the world population has autism spectrum disorder. (CDC, 2014) Prevalence in the United States is estimated at 1 in 68 births. (CDC, 2014). The rate of children being born with autism has climbed by 119% in just 10 years.

This means that in any regular classroom you may have at least one student with autism. In many GITC classrooms, we see 2 or more students who are "on the spectrum" because teachers who sign up for our classes tend to be seen by their principals as highly capable. Strong teachers are always called upon to teach students with greater needs than others. Music becomes a source of positive teaching and learning for these teachers because in general, autistic students respond beautifully to learning through making music.

We are supporting teachers to help students with autism participate in music by becoming active music makers. We are training teachers to teach their students to hold and strum ukuleles when they or their classmates sing. By strumming and singing, the students find that they have command over the music they make, rather than reacting to the sounds that disrupt their focus at volumes or frequencies beyond their tolerance. We are also still helping GITC teachers learn to use their Beamz devices to teach subject areas and social skills in addition to music.

In our regular Strum & Sing training classes for teachers this fall, we have  been sharing techniques for successfully leading musical learning for students with Aspergers Syndrome and other forms of autism. In particular, we are coaching teachers to help students with high sound sensitivity to learn to navigate their sound environments by:

• judging the volume level of sounds near them from 1 to 10, very soft to very loud.
• covering their ears in class for anything louder than a 7 on their "sound meter" such as loud singing, student applause, class bells and fire drill signals.
• covering their ears outside of school for anything louder than a 7 on their "sound meter" such as loud recorded beats and music inside a car, emergency vehicle sirens and low flying planes overhead, and movie sound tracks
• asking adults to lower the volume of sounds that are bothering them
• protecting their ears by using noise cancelling head phones where possible.

Thank you for being a part of this important work. We look forward to keeping you up to date with our progress and encourage you to share about it with your friends and family who might support and echo your compassion.

Very best wishes and thanks,

Jess

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