Rise UP!

It’s always great to observe fellow Arts Corps colleagues. There’s so much to learn about their artistry, pedagogical practices, and personal relationship with their students. Just a few weeks ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to do just that–observe fellow teaching artist, Stephany Hazelrigg at Aki Kurose.

What an awesome experience for me!

Besides the usual teaching of concepts, in this case, hip-hop vocabulary and dance moves, I found that Stephany was teaching an old and familiar concept in a whole new way.

Community.

I know I’ve written on this subject before and while I thought I had “community” well defined in my head, I now enjoy a much deeper understanding of this word than ever before.

You see, what caught my attention was her use of words and phrases that nurtured the idea of community and therefore were reflected in her actions.

For example, when two younger students began arguing, an older student jumped in and defended her friend. Instead of allowing the older student to take control of the situation, Stephany said- “will you be the older sister and mentor and step back?” This provided an opportunity for the two younger students to problem solve on their own and learn to communicate. As for the older girl, it allowed her to reflect and respond appropriately and maturely rather than to react defensively.

In another instance, as a young boy struggled teaching several dance moves to the class, Stephany reminded him, “remember, the goal as a leader is to not trick your community. Show them moves they can all follow.” As a result, the young boy chose simpler steps and taught them slowly so that all the students felt successful.

“Reset, Rewind, Recommit!”

“Rise up!”

“Celebrate and Elevate!”

Words and actions embracing and nurturing the true meaning of community.

It may seem basic and remedial, but in today’s world and with today’s generation, community is a hard concept to grasp. It’s not just about neighbors and neighborhoods. It’s about interacting with the people around us each and every day. Much of our youth today doesn’t know how to get along and communicate positively and effectively. We as teachers  have to tackle this problem and so much more in our classes. We’re not just teaching our artistry anymore, we’re teaching life long skills necessary to co-exist in our world. The fact is that we can’t really make an impact in our work until we’ve built a safe environment around us. We must all feel loved, accepted, and a significant part of a functioning community.

I left the class renewed, reinvigorated and eager to apply these ideas to my own students. I’ve always felt that even as a seasoned educator there is always room to learn new and old things.

After all, the key to perfecting our craft is to always remain life long students!

Thanks Stephany!

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Why Music Matters to Me

Arts Corps has truly been one of the most amazing things I have been a part of in my life. I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t met my Arts Corps mentors and friends.  Joining Youngstown Records and having Arts Corps’ love and support through our journey as a group made it an amazing and inspiring experience. They made us believe in what we did, whole-heartedly, and always encouraged us and gave us more opportunities than we could have ever asked for.

Arts Corps has inspired me to teach kids about all they are capable of and tapping into what they love to do. I’m currently working as an AmeriCorps member at Cascade Middle School and I use what I learned through Arts Corps to work with my students. Arts Corps has taught me responsibility, courage, and to expect the unexpected; and those are things that I try to instill in my students.

To be honest, I simply love Arts Corps. My best friend and I sometimes joke about being Arts Corps teaching artists and living in one of the upstairs classrooms at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. I’ve met the most amazing people through Arts Corps and I can’t wait to continue my work with them though out my life.

Listen to Vivi talk about Why Music Matters on KEXP

Vivi Perez is an Arts Corps alumni and was a member of the inaugural year of the youth-run record label Youngstown Records, a program of Arts Corps and Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. In one amazing year, Vivi and the Youngstown Records youth curated an exhibit for the Frye Art Museum and were invited to attend the White House historic concert and education event on February 10th entitled “A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement.”

Read about it here.

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Ho, Ho, Ho…Santa’s a Bully.

Well, another year has come and gone here at Meadowbrook View.  A lot has changed since I last blogged—new families, new faces,  new activities, new obstacles.

We’ve been pretty busy this holiday season with a return visit to Bart Harvey Senior Center for a holiday sing-a-long and cookie decorating with our elder friends. It’s always nice to be invited back to this community and see some familiar faces. It’s always nice to see the kids actively involved in positive things.

A new site we visited this year was Greenwood House. I really can’t get into too much detail with this particular site, but I will say the ladies at Greenwood really needed our company. Eagerly anticipating our arrival they had even prepared cookies and hot cocoa for the kids! Beside our usual routine, we were also delighted to have the vocal talents of one of our moms and our very own, Darnesha Weary! And I invited my friend, musician Nathan Olsen, to accompany our singing.

Seeing the radiant smiles from the women at Greenwood made it all the more worthwhile and it re-confirmed the importance of goodwill towards all and being of service in our community. Afterwards, I visited with some of the women as they gave me a tour of the house and talked about some of their life challenges. Their stories brought tears to my eyes.

*Sigh*

The thing is, while it sounds nice that my students went around singing holiday songs and spending time with those less fortunate, we’ve been having some serious problems. You see, just moments before each of these visits, we had issues with bullying.

Yes, that’s right. Bullying.

Here they are pretending to be nice to one another when in fact, that’s not the case at all. One of my girls was in tears because her own brother had been teasing the crap out of her and he even managed to get a few others to join the bandwagon. To make matters worse he along with another one of his buddies, sat laughing at my choir during our performance.

Both Darnesha and I (appalled and embarrassed) stopped the performance, reprimanded the boys, apologized to the elders and the choir, and started again.

Unfortunately, the damage was already done and it was impossible to get my kids out of the slump. They sang happy songs with long faces—what an oxymoron. It’s infuriating to see such disrespect and disregard.

More often than not this job wears me down. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I care deeply for the kids, but these battles are constant and sometimes they never seem to let up. It’s tiresome and you begin to wonder if you’re making any impact at all. It seems that the good things last for a really short while and the bad stuff seems to linger.

I remember getting teased when I was a kid “Carla has a boyfriend! Na na na boo-boo.” But that was it.

Today, kids are brutal.

Bullying is a serious issue in our world and in the lives of our children. There’s a fine line with a harmless tease and seriously hurting someone’s feelings–to the point of something more drastic.

Kids today, don’t seem to get that. I mean seriously, my students and I have had heart to heart talks about this in the past, but it seems to be going in one ear and out the other.

I have to wonder if my students have any idea what they are truly doing to each other.

Once again, we spoke to them about it. If the look on their faces was any indication, all they heard was “blah, blah, blah kids…blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Where do we go from here?

When will this madness stop?

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Classtime! student reflections & learnings

The MusicianCorps Seattle Fellows dedicated a year of service to music learning. A bulk of their time was spent teaching: in school, after-school, in community centers, at low-income housing institutes, to students learning an instrument for the first time, and to professionals seeking to incorporate music tools into their career.

The four MusicianCorps Seattle Fellows reached 234 students with ongoing year-long music learning classes, and over 2,500 community members with civic and learning events.

So what did the students think?  To find out, watch this video about classtime during the MusicianCorps Seattle pilot year, and see below to read student reactions.

“Taking care of people … drumming … the bells … meeting people … being able to work together … tambourines … working together”
–what students (aged 5-9) liked from Brazilian Rhythms, the MusicianCorps class led by Eduardo Mendonca

MusicianCorps Fellow Eduardo Mendonca with his Brazilian Rhythms class

“It’s been good. I enjoy practices. I enjoy the feeling I get when I wake up in the morning and say ‘uh, I got to go to school, but at least I have drumline today.’ He has taught me a lot of stuff. A lot of it has to do with drums, like sticking. But not only drumline … to believe in myself that I can do anything I want if I really try.”
–David Valdez-Lazo, student in Aaron Walker-Loud’s drumline class at Washington Middle School

MusicianCorps Fellow Aaron Walker-Loud with his drumline class at Washington Middle School

“I think his energy was really, really important. [Amos] opened up the space. He was modeling what we were going to do. And that was really important in order for us to start taking initiative to actually start seeing what it looks like.”

“It’s made me try new things and understand people better. When you actually sit down and take time to learn about how people are, you actually realize how amazing everybody is.”

“Now I have a stronger sense of self, and a stronger sense of what I need to get accomplished and who I am as a person. We all have these dreams, but who you are is what you choose to do, even if you mess up.”

“I am going to write music about issues going on in the community and perform them so that other people can learn about what’s going on. And to do performances for charities, because that’s what I really liked about being in this group – to play music for something we actually really cared about.”
–students from Youngstown Records, MusicianCorps class led by Amos Miller

Youngstown Records class with MusicianCorps Fellow Amos Miller

“Cool, Inspiring, Fun, Creative, Challenging, Awesome, The people, Carla, My team”
–what students liked from World Rhythms, the MusicianCorps class at Low Income Housing Institute at Meadowbrook View Apartments, led by MusicianCorps Fellow Carla Moreno

MusicianCorps Fellow Carla Moreno's World Rhythms class at Meadowbrook View Apartments
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Nursery rhymes nurturing communities: Early Childhood Education at LIHI

A story and interview from the MusicianCorps Seattle pilot year.

In winter 2010—part way through the pilot year—MusicianCorps Fellow Carla Moreno debuted a new class, Early Childhood Education. Up until that time, Carla had been working with (and continued to work with) youth, aged 9-14, at the Low Income Housing Institute, exposing students to world music, new instruments and songwriting. (Read Carla’s blog about her journey with the youth, who wrote a new song and performed at a senior center, Seattle Center and the Triple Door).

Carla Moreno leads young children and parents in engaging music activities.

The new class, Early Childhood Education, introduced Carla to a different population at the Low Income Housing Institute: parents and young children. Her weekly class included interactive music games, group singing, and exploration—activities which encouraged music appreciation at an early age, and family bonding through music and movement. When I visited Early Childhood Education, I found smiles on mothers, one father and children.

WATCH THE VIDEO of Carla Moreno’s Early Childhood Education class.

To me, these smiles were remarkable given the context of Carla’s work. Her MusicianCorps service site, Meadowbrook View Apartments, is part of the Low Income Housing Institute (or LIHI), an organization that develops and manages “housing for low-income, homeless and formerly homeless people in Washington State; advocates for just housing policies; and administers a range of supportive service programs.” Most families enter LIHI out of arduous situations, such as being homeless or indigent, or immigrating from war-torn countries.

As a MusicianCorps Fellow at Arts Corps, Carla had been charged with creating vibrant communities at LIHI through intergenerational and cross-cultural music exchanges, and performances that celebrate the diversity and cultures of all resident families.  Through her Early Childhood Education class, Carla did this by bridging the diverse families of Meadowbrook through engaging music and games, and teaching these families to bring that music into their homes. Carla approached this community, and her year of service as a MusicianCorps Fellow, with persistence, respect and love.

“Carla is very disciplined; she is very focused, she knows what she wants to do,” said Lynn DeMarco, Property Manager at Meadowbrook View Apartments. “She raised the bar and [the kids] came up and paid attention and had fun in class. She demands a lot—which I think is really important—she lets them know that they can do well but that they have to give a lot to get want they want.”

On the last day of the Early Childhood Education class, Diana Shomstein, our MusicianCorps Mentor, interviewed a parent who had been in the class. “Her children sing the songs at home, and Shana does especially,” Diana said.” “Her kids love it, especially being able to play the different instruments and hear the different sounds they make.”

I interviewed Carla to find out more about Early Childhood Education. Her answers follow.

JASMINE: How did the idea to form this class come about?

CARLA: The Early Childhood Music class was an idea I had at the beginning of the year, but we didn’t have enough children and parents were busy working during the day. A few months ago, a few families with toddlers, happened to move into the transitional units and the timing was perfect to start the class.

JASMINE: How have you chosen your lessons? What needs do they meet?

CARLA: The lessons are quite simple, yet complex. It’s all about play, exploration, and self discovery all done through a variety of music activities including, singing, listening, and movement. Similar to language, music must be nurtured from very young. Research shows that a child’s best music learning potential, or music aptitude, is from birth to age eight.

JASMINE: What have some challenges been?

CARLA: Attendance has always been a challenge. Many of these mothers not only work, but are attending school; therefore, this poses lots of scheduling conflicts. Consistency is important, but this is the reality of our community. We’ve had to learn to work through it.

JASMINE: What have some successes been?

CARLA: The kids AND parents are indeed learning and actively engaging in the music making process! Research was right!

JASMINE: How has teaching this class strengthened the LIHI community?

CARLA: I believe community is about relationships and that it starts at home with family. To see parents bond with their children is a testimony to the power of music in helping build those solid relationships that last a lifetime. I’ve already witnessed the parents bonding before and after class. It’s great to see them want to stick around and talk, joke around, and just be in a happy place!

JASMINE: What have you learned from your students and parents?

CARLA: I’ve learned that no matter what the situation may be or whatever background these families may come from, everyone deserves the chance to be a part of successful and loving community and have all the opportunities and offerings available to them just like any other community. I’ve also learned that they want to keep the Early Childhood Music program on going! Yeah!

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More scenes (video) from Southwest!

As followup to yesterday’s blog post about MusicianCorps at Southwest, here are links to two new videos. The first features Ms. Dian Fundisha-Bey, lead teacher at Southwest Interagency Academy, Seattle Public Schools. The second features Amos Miller, MusicianCorps Seattle Fellow, speaking about his work with youth at Southwest.

Ms. Fundisha-Bey on MusicianCorps and Amos Miller at Southwest.

MusicianCorps Seattle Fellow, Amos Miller, on working with Southwest Interagency Academy youth.

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