My students need a quality drum set and a mini-pan steel drum.
$1,110 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My students have the rhythm in them. The rhythm of the streets of the Bronx. My students are trying to learn about math and history and science and the world around them, while the rhythm is bursting out of them.
I have been teaching dance in this school for over 30 years.
Our favorite, the students and mine, is tap dancing. I love the energy and enthusiasm my students bring to the classroom. This is a high poverty school, with many students coming from immigrant families trying hard to make a better life for their children. The kids are eager to learn, but most have not had access to experiences other than those found right in the neighborhood. None has heard a live band, none has seen a live dance performance. When I set out to teach new rhythms in tap, it seems I awoke something in a some of the kids. All at once they were tapping out rhythms, not only in tap shoes (which would have been fine), but on their desks, and in the halls, everywhere.
My Project
I believe with the addition of a quality drum and cymbal set with insurance, my students will focus this energy into our school band and also into their tap dancing. We already have students learning saxophone and violin from our music teacher. Now the band can find it's beat. My dancers can be backed up with real drumming and we can come together in shows that will truly showcase all the talent that is now dormant in our school. A steel drum will also add sounds of the Caribbean that many of the kids have grown up with. I think this will be a natural fit for some kids that might be timid to try something new. They know what this instrument should sound like.
All children can learn.
Some learn in ways that are different from the norm. Anything that can excite a child, that can ignite that spark in a child's eyes is priceless. I truly believe that drums will do just that for the students in my school. I believe that by playing the drums, the rhythms that flow through our neighborhood and through my kids, will manifest itself in better school attendance and better grades overall. I am hoping that you agree and I thank you in advance.
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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 Ms. Morganstern and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
