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An AMAISE-ing Day of Training! 9/10, Let's Do it Again!

9/11/2022

Submitted by Jess Baron, Executive Director
San Diego, CA 9/11/22

What happened when an AMAISE-ing group of home hospital teachers, special educators, classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, and support service providers gathered yesterday at Whittier School? Devoting their own Saturdays to a full day of voluntary training in adaptive music, they sounded amazing!!

AMAISE stands for Adaptive Music for Achievement in Inclusion and Special Education.
It is pronounced, "amaze!"

Thanks so much to all who helped put on and carry out our first in person gathering since 2020, including GITC staff members Gail Wingfield and Stiina Luedtke! The photos below are chronological and give you a snapshot of the day. We welcomed many first-time participants in GITC from San Diego, and a great representation from East County school districts as far east as Lakeside, and from the Inland North, as far as Escondido and Vista! Kudos to all of you, including you passionate, creative mod/sev teachers from our own San Diego Unified School District!

Immense gratitude goes to SDUSD Home Hospital Transistion Supports superstar, Kristy McNamee (below) who teaches at the Bernardy Center for Medically Fragile Children, for teaching adaptive musical tech and keyboard adaptations for inclusion! We are excited to learn more about speech generation devices, and a wide range of intuitive and adaptable music apps.

A truly devoted and fun group of GITC leaders served tirelessly to make yesterday possible including Molly Stewart, Patty Steele, and Gingerlily Lowe (left), and Patty Bertam (right). Talk about managing logistics with love! These gals brought the joy all day long. Thank you so much to these angels.

We also deeply appreciate the outstanding instruction teachers received from the team of Annela Flores and her interns from music therapy providers. Musicworx for teaching drumming & drum circle facilitation for inclusion, special ed, and homebound and hospitalized students!

Three cheers for GITC faculty member and National University's SEL 2021 Teacher of the Year for this region, Ms. Reagan Duncan (left) of Maryland Elementary in Vista, for teaching SEL through Music! I am so fortunate to have had the chance to step in to teach an introductory lesson in adaptive ukulele, and be part of this inspiring team. A second training focusing on SEL with drums and ukes, and music leadership for student and family groups will run on September 24 from 9 am- 12 pm. GITC Teaching Artist Jody Mulgrew will be joining us in person! Seats are still available for 9/24/2022 HERE.

We are exceptionally grateful to the NAMM Foundation, our contract with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as Kala Brand Music, West Music, the D'Addario Foundation, the Nordson Foundation, CECO, the San Diego County Employees Charitable Organization, and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture for their support of these sequential trainings so all educators and support staff may participate at no cost, and receive training and musical supplies for their classrooms! We send love to Karen and Stephen des Jardins of Encinitas, CA whose contribution gave AMAISE it's very first opportunity to train educators in 2018.

Please enjoy these moments from the first Saturday AMAISE for the 2022-23 school year!
Thank you to Molly Stewart, Gingerlily Lowe, and Reagan Duncan
for sharing the photos in our gallery!

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GITC Welcomes Kazoobie Kazoos to the Family!

9/2/2022

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Back in May, 2021, Guitars & Ukes in the Classroom received a mysterious gift from our amazing board member and Education Committee Chair, Dr. Joan Maute. A large square, lightweight package containing 500 beautiful, high quality kazoos made by the Kazoobie Kazoo Company in Beaufort, SC, was about to brighten all of our lives! Joan had sourced these American made, high quality, dishwasher safe kazoos, and we just had to figure out how to integrate them into our work.

Within four weeks, we had an answer! Opportunity knocked with the start of our first Summer Strummers Clubs in San Diego. A little preliminary experimenting taught us that some removeable painters tape stretched across the kazoo bottoms kept all saliva in, and still let the buzzing out, making the kazoos safe to use. So into the clubs these mighty kazoos went, and the kids loved them at first sight. Next step was sharing them with our educators in training.

Total Beginners in our professional development workshops had a blast using the kazoos to hum song melodies. Why? A. No one sounds like the next Beyoncé playing a kazoo. You can sing and just have a good time without anxiety. In the words of Bobby McFerrin, "Don't worry, be happy!"
B. You can improvise a cool instrumental solo without using your fingers!
C. Kazoos can go anywhere and bring joy to the moment. And wow do they get a classroom's attention.

Please check out Kazoobie Kazoos, and if you are teaching in our programs, stay tuned for our Fall Classroom Purchasing Guide with a special discount code for GITC-affiliated teachers and staff.

Guitars & Ukes in the Classroom is grateful to the kind folks at Kazoobie Kazoos, and to Dr. Joan Maute, for giving everyone the world's funniest and easiest way to make music.

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An AMAISE-ing Day of Training! 9/10, Let's Do it Again!

GITC Welcomes Kazoobie Kazoos to the Family!

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