World Drumming-Making World History Come Alive Through Music
Help me give my students World Drumming experiences by providing an Irish, Middle Eastern, African and Asian drums and accessories so they can have hands fun to learn world history and music.
$181 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.
I teach grade K-6 general music in an inner-city school, poverty stricken school. The students are largely Hispanic with an ESL class for each grade. All students qualify for free breakfast and lunch due to their poverty level. ESL teachers teach in Spanish one day and English the next day to give ESL students an opportunity to learn using both Spanish and English. The school is an extended day school to allow students longer time to learn.
Since my school district is 60 million dollars budget deficit, all teachers have to pay for materials they need for their students themselves.
Unlike the suburban districts surrounding my urban school district, I have no music budget. All my students have rhythm inside. Although they do not speak or read English fluently, music is a universal language. The school has recovered from being a "receivership" school, which is quite an accomplishment since the school district had the lowest combined English language arts (ELA) and mathematics performance Index in the state at the elementary and middle school levels (grades 3-8).
My Project
Sixth graders study world history from written material in their classroom. Most of my students use English as a second language and lack understanding of textbook material. The students lack interest in studying other countries and become bored with factual information that has to be memorized for a test. As a music teacher, I believe that music is a universal language. My students eagerly engage in playing and echoing rhythms even though they do not speak good English. If I only had some world drums for them to play I know they would take more interest in learning about other countries.
Through playing authentic instruments from other countries, my students will develop high level thinking skills by comparing and contrasting world music to music they listen to.
They would learn to read and play rhythms with the bodhran and doumbek. Playing together would create unity. I will borrow a bass drum from the band director and use the bachi sticks to play Asian drumming. I will add the Kessing to the djembe drum I have. I am collaborating with the dance teacher to learn authentic African drum and dance and will teach it to my students. I will teach the bodhran and doumbek rhythms that I learned to my students to play Irish and Middle Eastern music. I will include maps and factual information from their classroom world history unit in their classroom to improve their ELA and Social Social Studies skills.
At the end of the year, the students would present a world drumming concert for the entire school and parents. Through your donation, my students will not only have knowledge of other countries in the world, but will have experienced being a part of it. Please give my students a hands-on experiences to learn world history.
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