GITC's Mission
Our mission is to transform pre-k through high school classrooms by training teachers to integrate musical learning in lessons in order to increase student engagement, employ oral language practice, and promote student achievement across the academic curriculum.  In our free workshops, teachers learn to sing with confidence, play guitar, lead songs, and to select, teach, and facilitate the student writing of educational songs. This daily integration of music with academic learning provides positive, inspiring musical access for all students as part of the regular school day. 

Why Train Teachers?
No one knows kids like teachers do. They know their hearts, minds, and needs. They work everyday to help them realize their potential. And teachers spend more waking time with kids than anyone else- about thirty hours a week. Teachers want learning to be fun. Most dread testing as much as the students do. They want very much to keep creativity alive. And consider this. Who knows 
better how to get ideas and information across to young people? Giving teachers the training and musical instruments they need to infuse lessons with musical learning is the most natural thing in the world! The level of participation and joy in the classroom goes up immediately when the teacher pulls a guitar out of its case, strums a chord, and invites the class to sing its spelling words, its multiplication table, its history lesson, or current science concept in a song. Best of all, the kids easily remember what they've learned. This is why we say "Train a Teacher and Inspire a Generation." 

Get Involved
Musical learning takes time and support. We build programs to last so teachers- and parent musical volunteers- can get all the training they need for as long as they seek it! Far more than a week-end workshop or a half-day seminar, Guitars in the Classroom provides weekly lessons throughout the school year. We welcome you to participate in starting and supporting a local training program in your own community or to get involved with an existing GITC program. We are an ever-growing community of people who love music and who believe that all children deserve to live in a musical world and attend school in a positive, healthy, creative environment. Our programs take place in communities as diverse as large urban centers and remote rural locations around the country. We have special modules of instruction for teachers who are working with English Language Learners, young children, students with special needs, student teachers in college level education programs, and in 2011, our new focus is teaching eco-sustainability through music with our new Green Songbook! So please contact us and let us know what's on your mind. And check back for more about our new Green Songbook! 5% of each book sold helps fund free programs.