By Jessica Baron | Executive Director
Hello, Supportive Friend of Music!
We want to give you a quick note to catch you up with the good things your gift has made possible already this school year! It’s an exciting time and I am so grateful you are with us!
The school year is off to an exciting (and somewhat controversial) start around the U.S. with the introduction of the Common Core Content Standards. These standards bring critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication skills to the forefront of America education. Instead of focusing primarily on units of test-able factoids and quantifiable memorization, the Common Core attempts to help our kids employ their bright minds in collabroative, creative and useful ways that will lead to long term understanding and success.
While many teachers agree it’s a move in “the right direction,” it also steps up the work load for teachers everywhere and increases the expectations for our students. Much discussion about these standards is underway everyday. Not everyone agrees on their value or viability but in general the buzz is positive. At its’ best, the Common Core is asking teachers to engage students in compelling activities and projects that build not only core subject area knowledge but also help them develop lasting life skills for the 21st Century.
With your support, GITC can make the process as joyful, artistic and effective as possible this year! Music will absolutely help. The power of music to engage everyone and lift spirits is undeniable. Please find the link to a great article about why music makes things so much more enjoyable with this report.
This week GITC will be sharing at our website a NEW how-to powerpoint that breaks the goals of the Common Core down within a framework of 21st century skills, and weaves the whole process through collaborative student music making and songwriting for learning. This should make connections clearer for teachers and also make it easier for any teacher to show her or his administrator how and why music has a helpful place in the general classroom!
Please stay with us to help us launch new programs - in alignment with the Common Core- this fall. We already got started in Hampton, Virgina, Clay, West Virginia, Oxnard, CA, Vista, CA, and in a few weeks we start in Lansing, MI!
Guitars in the Classroom needs your continuing support to give teachers the training and supplies to make music in the general classroom possible. Together, let's empower teachers to boost student engagement and success through writing, playing and singing songs with new vocabulary and better language fluency. Let's give them music that improves student reading comprehension and the ability to decode language syllabically. (Remember that song lyrics really emphasize the different syllables in each word as it scans across musical notes.) Let's pour music into our schoools together.
Your donation of any amount makes a difference not for one or two but for 240 30 children at a time!
These darling students in the photo you are seeing are only in their second month of third grade at Sandburg Elementary School in Mira Mesa, Ca. Their teacher trained with us - and they can each already play four chords on ukulele! As a class they have already written five songs for math, language arts and science lessons! In this photo they are playing “The Earth is Our Mother” as part of their study of the Kumayay people in preparation for Thanksgiving. You can see the engagement and joy in their faces- they power of the music in their hands.
Please give now and make this magic possible for children in classrooms all over the United States. You are helping us change so many young lives when you take action on right here on GlobalGiving.org!
Thank you for your awesome support. Together we are making a difference every day.
Peace,
Jess
Links:
By Jessica Baron | Executive Director
By Jessica Baron | Executive Director, Guitars In The Classroom
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