Did you know that millions of kids in our public schools are receiving
NO music education whatsoever? I didn't either. I also didn't set out to
start a national charity that would bring instruments and lessons to
tens of thousands of low-income kids but, hey, accidents happen. Here's
the story of Little Kids Rock.
I became a public school teacher because I felt the best hope for our
future had to be our children. It seemed to me that a lot of the
grown-ups of the world seem to have gotten, well, let's just say
"distracted." On my first day as a teacher, I went to my principal's
office to ask when my class would have their music periods. She just
gave me a blank stare and told me that we didn't have a music teacher
and that anyone who wanted to introduce music to their class would have
to develop the curriculum and teach it themselves. I was shocked but,
being an avid guitarist myself, I took it on as a personal challenge.
The twenty second-graders in my class were going to learn to play the
guitar.
I started with nothing but index cards. I asked my students to write
down all their favorite songs on one side of their card and all their
favorite artists on the other. When I had collected the cards, I had my
curriculum and repertoire for the year. Now all I needed was twenty
guitars. I called up some of my musician friends (especially ones that
owed me favors) to see if they had old beat-up six-strings that they
could donate to the cause. Within a few weeks I had assembled a ragtag
fleet of instruments and I began to offer a guitar class once a week
after-school.
The music classes I had grown up with took a very dry and didactic
approach. Since there was no formal music program, I had the freedom to
create something from scratch.so I scratched most of what I had seen of
more traditional music programs almost immediately. The first thing that
went was the cannon. We didn't learn "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or "Three
Blind Mice." We learned top 40 hits that the kids knew and loved. The
kids went bananas over that! The next thing I eliminated was the use of
music notation. I simply taught the kids to play by ear, a
less-intimidating path and one that eliminated a first obstacle to
playing. Finally, I added two elements rarely seen in music classes for
kids: improvisation and composition. That's when things started getting
really interesting.
My students (who were 7 and 8 years old) started writing their own
songs. They started forming bands. They started looking and sounding
like musicians. People in the community started to notice. We
released a CD of original songs written by the kids. After hearing that
CD, Carlos Santana bought $7,500 worth of guitars for the program. I
opened up other classes. John Lee Hooker, the legendary bluesman, came
out and visited the classes. The press started covering the classes and
stories ran in newspapers, on TV and on the radio.
The kids' original songs and jam sessions were really getting folks
attention. People from around the state and beyond started writing and
calling. "Kids learning to play the music they love? Rock and roll? And
writing their own music?" they asked. "I wish they'd had that when I was
a kid. How can I get involved?" I found other schoolteachers who wanted
to bring music into their kids' lives and trained them to run similar
classes. I started fundraising for more and more instruments.
What had started as a small sideline of my teaching career had grown to
be a central part of my work. Why? Because I saw the transformative
effect that music education was having on the kids we were reaching. The
confidence they exhibited, the camaraderie they were experiencing with
their peers and the sheer joy they derived from the act of making music
were changing how the kids saw themselves and their school. These
benefits spilled over into all other areas of their academic lives.
I had gone into teaching to aid and abet tomorrow's change-makers and
now, with my idiosyncratic music classes, I felt that I was on course.
In 2002, I decided to take my tiny program and turn it into a public
charity. I gave it the name "Little Kids Rock" and I left my job (and
the security of a salary!) to devote all of my time to reaching more
kids. It was a leap of faith and one that many, many people counseled me
NOT to take. However, I didn't follow that advice and things have
progressed remarkably since then.
Little Kids Rock is currently bringing free music classes and free
musical instruments to over twelve-thousand kids in more than a dozen US
cities. This number will double in 2008. We are transforming children's
lives by restoring and revitalizing music education in our public
schools. We restore music education by donating thousands of instruments
to the schools. We revitalize it by making it more relevant and powerful
for the youth of today. While budget cuts have forced many schools to
eliminate music programs altogether, those that are still running are
sometimes tedious and unappealing to young kids.
How many people do you know took lessons as kids but quit because the
instruction didn't resonate for them? Those people always say the same
thing: Now, I wish I could play! Little Kids Rock is an antidote to that
problem. By taking a child centered approach, we ensure high levels of
buy in from the kids we serve. If you'd like to see what all of
this looks like first-hand, please visit one of our websites where you
can see video footage of the program in action: www.littlekidsrock.org
www.littlekidsrock.tv . There you will see our kids doing their thing
and, at the TV site, you can even take free Little Kids Rock classes.
Ever wanted to learn to rock? Maybe now's a good time to start. Ever
wanted to get lessons for your kid but felt they were too expensive,
consider Little Kids Rock your free public resource.