“Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand.” Carl Orff. I want to involve every student in the school band to their full potential, even the percussionists.
My students are intelligent, excited, talented learners in a small rural school.
They take on challenges with patience and dedication and the end product is always their best. Band is a safe and healthy place for them to be involved, learn to cooperate as a group, and become productive leaders and citizens. Since I started teaching at this school, I have seen an increased excitement for music which has led to nearly 50% of eligible students joining band. That's an incredible number for a school with fewer than 300 students in K-12! However, with that growth comes the issue of not enough quality equipment - especially for percussionists.
My Project
My percussion students are some of the most dedicated, caring, and hardworking students you will find. They have worked hard for several years with very few tools with which to work, and many of the instruments they do have are of poor quality. As a percussionist myself, I have brought my own mallets, cymbals, and toy instruments into my classroom several times and the students have treated them with utmost care.
With new instruments, sticks, and hardware, my students will continue to grow as percussionists.
Every time they are forced to use broken mallets, cracked drums, or instruments with holes in them they are implicitly told they are not worth having new, quality, instruments. They still show up and do their best day after day, going above and beyond my expectations every time. The items I am requesting will repair those quality things the school owns that need some TLC, will replace some things that are way beyond repair, and will provide the tools for future generations of percussionists to excel.
By supporting this project, you are allowing students in a small town who are use to getting the short end of the (drum)stick experience music and percussion the way they deserve - on instruments that are in one piece.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Washington and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
