Our Equity Statement
From our early days, Guitars in the Classroom (GITC) has dedicated its efforts to advancing teacher and student learning and well-being by providing free teacher training through workshops, classes, and classroom co-teaching artist residencies focusing on inclusive, cross-curricular, integrated, hands-on music that cultivates and encourages student voices, and equitably includes every student.
We predominantly serve in Title I schools and low-income communities, honoring culturally, economically, and ideologically diverse people of all ages and abilities. Our collaborative approach to teaching and learning together brings to light participants' lived experiences, strengths and vulnerabilities, important traditions, and individual creativity while cultivating respect, kindness, and safety. Teaching in a circle, and giving each participant the chance to be seen, heard, and included instills a sense of belonging that leads to an undeniable feeling of unity through shared artistic expression in the universal language of Music.
GITC provides our professional development training and teaching artist residencies along with access to instruments and supplies to program participants in classrooms from coast to coast, reaching students at promise, communities in need, and children who are isolated at home or in hospitals due to overriding medical conditions that prevent them from making music at school.
Our work in home hospital schools empowers visiting teachers to learn to make and sustain daily music in collaboration with students' family members, therapists, and medical caregivers. This includes providing adaptive music tools, supports, and instruction for each child's teachers and students. We adapt musical instruments to provide access for every student.
Organizationally, our staff and board members are skilled in consensus building, collaborative problem solving, and inclusive decision making in accordance with our core values of respect, empathy, tolerance, and the practice of active, non-judgmental listening. Our board and faculty include people from different generations, walks of life, cultures, and areas of expertise. Our work is guided by people who identify, think, vote, and worship in their own ways, and who come together around the common goal of supporting creativity and music. We are enthusiastic participants in the movement to create a kind, just, and caring society.
We predominantly serve in Title I schools and low-income communities, honoring culturally, economically, and ideologically diverse people of all ages and abilities. Our collaborative approach to teaching and learning together brings to light participants' lived experiences, strengths and vulnerabilities, important traditions, and individual creativity while cultivating respect, kindness, and safety. Teaching in a circle, and giving each participant the chance to be seen, heard, and included instills a sense of belonging that leads to an undeniable feeling of unity through shared artistic expression in the universal language of Music.
GITC provides our professional development training and teaching artist residencies along with access to instruments and supplies to program participants in classrooms from coast to coast, reaching students at promise, communities in need, and children who are isolated at home or in hospitals due to overriding medical conditions that prevent them from making music at school.
Our work in home hospital schools empowers visiting teachers to learn to make and sustain daily music in collaboration with students' family members, therapists, and medical caregivers. This includes providing adaptive music tools, supports, and instruction for each child's teachers and students. We adapt musical instruments to provide access for every student.
Organizationally, our staff and board members are skilled in consensus building, collaborative problem solving, and inclusive decision making in accordance with our core values of respect, empathy, tolerance, and the practice of active, non-judgmental listening. Our board and faculty include people from different generations, walks of life, cultures, and areas of expertise. Our work is guided by people who identify, think, vote, and worship in their own ways, and who come together around the common goal of supporting creativity and music. We are enthusiastic participants in the movement to create a kind, just, and caring society.