News: Guitars in the Classroom

In a clutch save last week when a late breaking need for guitars arose for GITC, help arrived on the double from GAMA, the Guitars and Accessories Marketing Association and Fender Musical Instruments.
 
Rob Sulkow, director of GAMA, did not hesitate to act when he learned that through a simple email mis-communication, a special new GITC AMIGO program being funded by The NAMM Foundation was without instruments. He immediately reached out to constituents from his organization, asking if any company could instantly come up with 15 acoustic guitars to ship in the next day.

The guitars were needed to supply a very special northwest Michigan migrant schools training program.  The participating teachers come from all over the 5-county area, and some come from all over the state. Their students are all English Language Learners (ELLs) for whom music integration serves as an entry point and incentive for learning, classroom participation, and quickly acquiring English. The class was scheduled to take place in rural Traverse City in just 5 days!  Instructor Amy Martin was already strategizing about how to go guitar-less until a donor might emerge.

Amazingly, within the hour, Mr. Sulkow received an affirmative response from Bob Morris, Director of Education for Fender Musical Instrument Corporation, a company that originally helped launch GITC's work in 2000. In the interim years, Fender has been focusing on bringing guitar education to middle and high school music programs through the highly successful GAMA MENC Summer Guitar workshops while GITC has continued to develop classroom music integration for general subjects teachers and learning specialists. Now, through acts of compassion on the parts of Mr. Sulkow and Mr. Morris, Guitars in the Classroom has been dually blessed both with the needed instruments and a reconnection with Fender.

When asked what motivated his act of kindness, Bob Morris explained this way. "The situation took me back to when I was in the classroom. And I thought about how it would be for Amy to have no instruments that first day. I just couldn't let that happen. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Anyone who can touch someone musically is a friend of mine. And at the end of the day, all of us at Fender couldn't be happier to do something like that. We can't do it every day, but what we were able to do here is a lot more important than anything we could receive in return."

The instruments arrived Monday morning where GITC instructor Amy Martin was on stand-by to tune the guitars into Open G and place them into the eager hands of teachers. 

Guitars in the Classroom would like to thank Fender Musical Instruments and Bob Morris, as well as GAMA and director Rob Sulkow, all long time supporters of GITC, for this clutch save! GITC is also immensely grateful to The NAMM Foundation for funding the important work of The AMIGO Project around the country. Because of everyone's kindness, these 15 teachers and 1500 lucky students will receive music integration as part of daily instruction this summer and in the years ahead.

For the full interview with Mr. Morris, Director of Education for Fender, please click here.

Bay Area Concerts Showcase Groundbreaking Bilingual Classroom Programs

Alisa Peres, recently named director of Guitars In The Classroom's (GITC) popular and powerful AMIGO program, has announced that a special series of interactive concerts featuring the acclaimed bilingual musical group, Colibri, has been scheduled to take place in northern California during the months of April, May and June. Funded by a grant from the California Arts Council and Department of Justice, the concerts are free to the public, open to all ages and, along with Colibri, will include "sing-along" performances of traditional Spanish-language songs by Alisa's AMIGO-trained classroom teachers and their students.

The first participatory concerts took Place in Oakley and San Pablo, California. The community came out en force; families arrived with younger siblings and children dressed in their Sunday best to stand on stage with their teachers and Colibri to sing for the audiences in Spanish and English.

Still to come are the following participatory concerts to take place in Oakland and San Francisco, California.

Oakland, CA - May 26, 2010

San Francisco, CA - June 3, 2010

Oakland, CA - June 9, 2010

For tickets and information please contact Colibri at www.colibrimusic.com, 510-204-9091.

"The population of English Language Learners (ELL) in our schools is growing rapidly and AMIGO gives classroom teachers a way to engage and inspire these students to learn English and do well in all subjects through a fun, effective, musical approach. This work builds theirconfidence in the classroom and honors diversity and cultures," says Alisa. "Our research makes a good case for the power of music integration to help close the ELL achievement gap."

Thanks to support from the California Arts Council and the Department of Justice, these upcoming concerts and GITC's collaboration with Alisa and Colibri mark a significant expansion of the AMIGO and GITC over-all program model, according to the organization's founder and executive director, Jessica Baron. "Working with Colibri has allowed us to expand to our ability to bring music to education by involving artists as teacher trainers," Jessica explains. "This very special arts grant gives GITC the chance to create free community concerts led by Guitars in the Classroom artist-instructors in a dual role that GITC has not tried before. The AMIGO concerts featuring Colibri will include performances by local classroom teachers and elementary school students! We invite and encourage the whole community to attend."

"AMIGO has achieved a lot so far in its first few years, and we are excited to discover its true potential to bring education to life through music," Alisa continues. "Our work merges arts education with academics and multi-cultural education through song-based instruction during which the classroom teacher accompanies her class "choir" on guitar." For example, one of the Spanish-to-English AMIGO songs is the Bread Baker's Song from Chilé. In addition to teaching English to Spanish-speaking students, the song can also be used to teach the country's history and geography as well as its culture to the entire class. I believe that AMIGO has the power to throw the doors and windows to learning across the curriculum wide open for English Language Learners and all students. As AMIGO's director, I look forward to taking these next steps."

In addition to directing the AMIGO program, generously funded for the last two years by the NAMM Foundation, Alisa is also a member GITC Board of Directors and the Chairperson of the GITC Education Committee. As Colibri, Alisa and Lichi Fuentes create a musical bridge between children in the U.S. and those in the Spanish-speaking world. The duo has presented over 500 concerts and workshops since 1989. Learn more at ColibriMusic.com. Contact the California Arts Council at www.cac.ca.gov and the California Department Of Justice at ag.ca.gov.