GUITARS IN THE CLASSROOM

Our organization aims to make music a tool that teachers everywhere can apply to teaching lessons in any subject area. By accomplishing this, we are bringing singing back to regular classrooms, where songs can carry ideas, words, and messages that inform and uplift students. We are also teaching them to play instruments. They are using their minds, bodies and spirits.

Our goal is to continue to train, equip, coach, and empower any motivated teacher to find and develop their essential musicality in service of teaching and inspiring their elementary students during their most formative years. We accomplish this by providing instruction, materials and instruments, too.

Using traditional melodies, folk instruments, and cherished songs, as well as collaborative student songwriting, we hope to help restore music to its role as a natural form of human expression and connection in American culture. Instead of allowing music to continue to be relegated to a byproduct of pop culture or available only to individuals with "special talent" or the means to pay for private instruction, we aim to help children and their families once again embrace music as a shared pursuit, pastime, and tradition. This is happening in families of students whose teachers have trained with us. Those young students are teaching their parents, grandparents and siblings to sing and play at home.

Our goal is to improve literacy skills when it counts most- by 4th grade. Music is a central process to language development in children. When they learn to hear, decipher, combine, and use sounds to form intelligent language, they have critical skills to facilitate all other learning. We teach specific workshops in phonological awareness through music to teachers in the early grades so they can get students beginning at 48 months old on track.

Without elementary reading proficiency, their chances of graduating high school dwindle. In fact, in California about 70% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate. Public schools must develop ways to include all students, not just those whose parents can pay for it, and not only those with exceptional talent. Our charity makes this possible.

We are also making music accessible for students with disabilities. Inclusion is critical for every child. By adapting instruments for students with limited coordination, and developing techniques for students with mild to severe cognitive, physical or emotional disabilities, we are finding new ways to help every learner participate in and benefit from learning through music.

Ultimately, we aim to create tremendous access to music for students in every kind of community. Wherever there are teachers willing to step up, learn, create, and lead, we want to be available to provide vital resources and ongoing training. Only by coming to this proposition as a charity operating as a complement to school districts can we accomplish these goals consistently, unimpeded by educational politics and budget cuts.

Our chief strategy is to fund our work through varied income streams, including national, state, county and local grants, public-private partnerships, corporate giving, and individual contributions, as well as earned income streams. By bringing people together for this cause, we are able to give teachers free ongoing classes and supplies. Another strategy is widespread volunteerism. We have "Ängel" positions that include musical teens and adults who help inventory and tune instruments, others who visit classrooms and help the teachers lead music, and artist angels who advocate, perform benefit concerts, and give free concerts and workshops in the schools. We also partner with many musical instrument and accessories companies who provide instruments and supplies for GITC participants in our programs, either for free or at greatly reduced costs. Our strategies for growth include expanding programs with our "stones throw" method in which faculty trainers with established best practices travel to nearby school districts to train music educators there. From among those newly trained music teachers, we identify a few very compassionate and capable souls who are great with adult beginners - a.k.a. their general classroom colleagues. The programs grow outward from there. You can see the outcome of this approach in our program descriptions.

We also make this happen by working with a very committed, active Board of Directors. Each director works several hours a week to guide our organization. Our Executive Committee meets weekly, other committees meet between 1-4 times each month, and our full board meets monthly. With this level of stewardship, all challenges are met collaboratively.

The same is true of our business and foundation sponsors. Companies and charities involved with GITC are cherished participants in the work. We value long term relationships and do our best to nurture them. We carefully follow funding and media guidelines, invite donors and representatives to visit training programs and classrooms, and we send regular progress reports. We also share about the people and companies who make GITC possible through social media. This helps everyone receive the credit they deserve!

We're committed to responsible growth, rather than allowing programs to outstrip our ability to supply, steer and evaluate them. Our hope is to grow GITC to the point that we can qualify for capacity grants from major foundations and receive major gifts from individuals in order to increase the number of schools and students we serve. To achieve that, we must increase staffing so programs can be wisely managed. Each one must be personally and artfully cultivated, guided and assessed. This takes time.

We are also dedicated to keeping our mission focused on serving students and teachers in public elementary schools starting with preschool through grade 5. This is where needs for musical learning opportunities are the highest and can do the greatest good.

First and foremost, we have a very stable, strong Board of Directors. Everyone works hard. We meet as a full board for 90 minutes over the phone each month and our committees meet in between the monthly full board meetings to achieve their goals and report back. In addition, our Executive Committee meets every week. With a board this steady and committed, our vision, aims and objectives are constantly renewed, updated and met. Second, our national faculty is also stable. Talented music educators love teaching this work because GITC allows them to leverage full careers as music teachers to serve general teachers whose skills for communication and nurturing children are equal to their own. The skills and legacy of music are naturally passed through communities in many loving, capable hands. Third, teachers themselves provide incredible capability. They make excellent students and humble facilitators, inspiring the students in their classrooms to join them in learning through music. Finally, our sponsors from the music products industry make it possible for GITC to place excellent instruments into the hands of teachers and children. Considering the very limited funding for music in the schools, our ability to devote $8,000-$10,000 of instruments and supplies for each new regional class makes a very real difference. People who could not afford to purchase a guitar or ukulele and all the accompanying gear can receive them gratis because companies like Martin Guitar, Godin Guitars, Kala Brand Music, D'Addario Strings, Dunlop Manufacturing and so many others make this work possible.

This work brings an innovative musical approach to teaching and learning all subjects in order to improve the quality of daily instruction and boost student outcomes. GITC services increase equal access to hands-on music for students in Tk-3, grades which rarely receive any music instruction, while giving students much-needed Oral Language Practice in English through the power of song. At the same time, the work lifts the morale of the participating teachers by equipping and empowering them with what they need to develop greater creativity, musical skills and implementation strategies for applying music to teaching literacy, math, and more. The work also gives teachers a beautiful medium through which to impart social-emotional learning

Creating equal access to GITC programs is crucial to our mission. Teachers and school staff participate from schools throughout the United States representing every race, some more than two, predominantly in Title 1 schools. Although our work centers on building literacy and a well-rounded education for Tk-5 students, teachers at all grade levels enroll and adapt our approach to fit their students’ needs. Diversity is the hallmark of GITC programs. For example, in San Diego, CA 20-40% of the families come from outside of the US, many as refugees hungry for literacy education. On average, 40-50% of the students and families are Hispanic, 20% are African American, 20% are Asian, and 10% are white. About 10% represent two or more races. The songs we teach reflect the cultural traditions and languages of our participants.

GITC has completed DEI workshops on communication skills for having “difficult conversations” as well as exploring ways to productively engage with colleagues, family members and friends in talking about race. Participants included classroom teachers, faculty trainers, GITC staff and board members and volunteers. We also provide positive resources for teachers to engage their students in inclusive classroom communities.

Our main website is focused on outreach, educating the public on our work to inspire and grow our community of supporters. We also have a website specifically for teachers to interact and receive their instructional materials and important resources. By adding a resource library website, we are making it much easier for teachers to navigate and download whatever they need to learn and lead music with students.

We have created educational videos and added free online classes so educators in remote locations can begin to train themselves to do this work, even if they cannot participate in a class in their own district. These resources will be available in an online library. This open source approach to sharing our work freely means educators in high poverty schools anywhere can begin to make a difference for their students. We are also growing our summer training options so teachers can have a chance to travel elsewhere to learn the method during their summers.