STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS MATTER!
AMAISE : Adaptive Music for Achievement in Inclusion & Special Education
We Train Special Educators and Inclusion Teachers to Lead Music
So Students of All Abilities Can Learn to Play & Sing, Too!
AMAISE : Adaptive Music for Achievement in Inclusion & Special Education
We Train Special Educators and Inclusion Teachers to Lead Music
So Students of All Abilities Can Learn to Play & Sing, Too!
Learning to make music is valuable for every student, not just the fortunate few. For children experiencing cognitive, physical and social-emotional challenges and their teachers and helpers, AMAISE training has proven to be a true life changer!
Teachers, para-professionals and specialists who learn to adapt music and teach through drumming, strumming and singing songs with GITC’s adaptive approach are developing the power to access their students' ABilities through musical learning instead of encountering old obstacles and DISABilities. Troubles literally "melt like lemondrops" everyone begins to make music together.
GITC supplies specialized instruments and accessories so students with a broad range of challenges can learn to hold, shake, strike and strum them with support, then independently. Nothing motivates them more than the joy of strumming, feeling and hearing a ukulele or inventing and repeating a rhythm pattern on a big drum. With AMAISE, music-making becomes a medium for students' personal success and also positive, whole-group social experiences. The difference in special day classrooms is as dramatic as night and day.
Teachers, para-professionals and specialists who learn to adapt music and teach through drumming, strumming and singing songs with GITC’s adaptive approach are developing the power to access their students' ABilities through musical learning instead of encountering old obstacles and DISABilities. Troubles literally "melt like lemondrops" everyone begins to make music together.
GITC supplies specialized instruments and accessories so students with a broad range of challenges can learn to hold, shake, strike and strum them with support, then independently. Nothing motivates them more than the joy of strumming, feeling and hearing a ukulele or inventing and repeating a rhythm pattern on a big drum. With AMAISE, music-making becomes a medium for students' personal success and also positive, whole-group social experiences. The difference in special day classrooms is as dramatic as night and day.
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AMAISE-ing classrooms are more cohesive, harmonious and joyful places to learn. Students experience very satisfying and safe sensory stimulation, mind-body integration with their peers. As a result, we are seeing all kinds of surprising breakthroughs!
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We honor the special educators, specialists and para-professionals who are contributing to this body of work. In the video to the right, veteran teacher, Val Simons facilitates a breakthrough with her student, a child whose cerebral palsy has previously inhibited motor coordination and mobility. Watch as she experiences her first strum!
Drumming or strumming a steady beat gives students a predictable pattern students with any kind of physical limitation, cognitive impairement or language delay. Playing this beat helps students regulate their muscle control, training their bodies to move beyond spastic rigidity! |
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Inclusion teachers are also joining AMAISE conferences and online classes to acquire new skills and techniques to deliver individualized instruction for students with special needs. Read what some have to say...
"The impact goes beyond just learning content - there is one student who had never uttered a word in school before, who is now singing in front of the class. Music has given her, as it has all of the children, the confidence to stand up and speak out." Dana Archer, Teacher Jefferson Elementary, SDUSD |
"I have seen the biggest changes in one of my students who is autistic. He is usually reluctant to speak and, when he does, it is usually in a whisper and he only utters a single word. It is amazing how much he has opened up since we started using the ukuleles. He now participates regularly in class and is much more socially confident."
Kippi Macdonald, Teacher Saturn Street Elementary, LAUSD |
"After singing a song daily for 2 weeks to a student with very low verbal skills, he suddenly generated spontaneous language through song by creating his own meaningful lyrics to the familiar melody I'd been singing." Desirée Cera-Robles
Behavior Support Resources Department, SDUSD
Behavior Support Resources Department, SDUSD
"When we went to visit this AMAISE-ing classroom for the first time, we brought the REMO Comfort Sound giant tabletop drum and set it up so every student could approach it at an advantageous height. One by one, the students worked through their initial uncertainties and came over to try it out.
Within half an hour the students who would normally remain disengaged or unfocused had each come to the drum, made sounds, built rhythms together - an enormous social and emotional feat- and were playing together. The wonder, joy and connection were astounding! To top it all off, when parents and grandparents came to pick their students up at days end, they were introduced to the drum by their excited youngsters who were ready to perform for them. Their teacher said, for one student in particular, this was the first time he had ever received a positive report.
Music reaches into deeply receptive and creative places inside of each of us. It inspires and makes us capable in ways we never before imagined. We each possess this gift and unless we know this, we need someone caring to help us find it.
Jess Baron
GITC Founder and Executive Director
Within half an hour the students who would normally remain disengaged or unfocused had each come to the drum, made sounds, built rhythms together - an enormous social and emotional feat- and were playing together. The wonder, joy and connection were astounding! To top it all off, when parents and grandparents came to pick their students up at days end, they were introduced to the drum by their excited youngsters who were ready to perform for them. Their teacher said, for one student in particular, this was the first time he had ever received a positive report.
Music reaches into deeply receptive and creative places inside of each of us. It inspires and makes us capable in ways we never before imagined. We each possess this gift and unless we know this, we need someone caring to help us find it.
Jess Baron
GITC Founder and Executive Director
We thank the Kennedy Center’s Office of Very Special Arts and the Nordson Foundation for supporting our conferences and teaching artist residencies, and the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting the development of AMAISE materials, online training and forthcoming conferences.
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EDUCATORS - MAKE YOUR CLASSROOM AMAISE-ING WITH THIS TRAINING!
ADAPTIVE MUSIC for ACHIEVEMENT IN INCLUSION and SPECIAL EDUCATION
Please check out our Online Course and stay tuned for future conferences
as soon schools resume holding classes.
You can also drop us a line at info@guitarsintheclassroom.org
Anyone teaching, supporting or assisting teachers in the education of students with special needs can benefit from participating in an AMAISE workshop or conference.
You can learn more about AMAISE by reading our blog!
You can learn more about AMAISE by reading our blog!