| News - Friday, January 5, 2007
Cultivating confidence, through music
Music in the Schools brings lessons to young Ravenswood students
by Kate Daly
Occasionally the wrong note slips out, but for the most part the classroom is filled with the promising sound of 24 fourth graders playing a recognizable version of "Hot Cross Buns" on their recorders.
For this group of students at Green Oaks Academy in East Palo Alto, the feat carries more significance than learning a simple song. The teachers and backers of this and 54 other music classes in the Ravenswood City School District have high hopes that music lessons will give children a chance to acquire self-confidence and skills that will serve them well later on in life.
"If you've got a hook at school that keeps them coming -- keeps them in -- and allows them to be successful and get respect from their peers," then the music program has achieved a worthwhile purpose, said Virginia Fruchterman, the incoming chair of Music in the Schools, the nonprofit foundation that is paying music teachers to work at four Ravenswood schools. The hope is that students, through music, will find something "that fires them up," she added.
Already, the classes are proving to be a positive influence on the students. Fourth-grader George Raya said playing the recorder makes him feel "smart." His classmate Costodio Hernandez talks proudly about the five songs they have learned in the past five months.
Their young and energetic music teacher, Katie Palumbo, knows how to inspire her 500 students. Now in her third year at Green Oaks Academy, she has built a good rapport with the 23 classes she teaches each week.
Working with one group recently, she warmed up the students by having them sing along to the Beatles' song, "Obladi Oblada." She urged them to use "strong voices and good posture," led them in several verses with her opera-singer voice, then moved on to playing three tunes on the recorder.
At the end of the half hour she challenged the fourth-graders to figure out how to play "Jingle Bells" on the recorder, giving them the hints that "the first pitch is A-B, and there are two pitches you haven't learned."
Thanks to donations such as a $5,000 grant from the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, the foundation added recorders to the curriculum this school year. The idea is to teach students to read music, so that they will be ready to play other instruments in fifth grade.
Fruchterman said there are other benefits as well. "We're trying to develop critical listening skills," she said, adding that language and music are so intertwined, the students are also learning English, reasoning and cooperation all at the same time.
The recent-past chair of Music in the Schools, Joanne Abel, said Green Oaks Academy's "Academic Performance Index scores went up 101 points, and the principal feels we played some part in that."
During a recent class with 20 first-graders at the school, Palumbo had the children singing a Beatles' song about friendship and then accompanying it with two different kinds of bells. The students acted out another song, then they grabbed partners to do a Virginia reel. When class was over, Yanixa Vargas picked the instruments as the best part, whereas Stephanie Quiroz chose singing and dancing as her favorites. Classmate Luis Valencia summed up the whole class as "great!"
Fruchterman and Abel -- piano teachers who met through the Palo Alto branch of the Music Teachers Association -- formed the foundation to bring the joy of music to underserved communities.
"We wanted to bring music to parents and children who can't afford piano lessons," Abel explained.
They and other board members volunteer their time to the foundation and are currently looking to hire another teacher to work in the Ravenswood schools. Right now music classes are being taught at Green Oaks Academy and Costano Elementary. Kitty Pecka, an early childhood music specialist at Stanford University's Bing Nursery School, is training some Ravenswood preschool parents in how to make books come alive with music, dance and movement. The training sessions are designed to get the parents working as volunteers in their children's classrooms, so they can improve their own self-esteem and become more involved in their children's education.
At Willow Oaks Elementary in Menlo Park, the foundation is funding an after-school violin ensemble for 20 students. In the future, the foundation hopes to offer music classes at James Flood Magnet School and Belle Haven Elementary, too.
It all comes down to funding. "We're looking for an angel," Fruchterman said.
In the past year, besides individuals writing checks, significant donations have come from the Palo Alto Community Fund, the Woman's Club of Palo Alto, Peninsula Community Foundation, and Palo Alto Congregational Foundation.
Music in the Schools has big plans to grow, launching choirs, bands, orchestras and other after-school programs down the line.
Worrying about potential gang activity, Fruchterman recognizes the need for more after-school offerings. "The time for crime is 3 to 4 in the afternoon," she said.
"I think we're doing something very positive and life changing," Abel said.
The Music in the Schools program can be contacted at 650-856-7672 and musjoy@earthlink.net.
The Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund supports local nonprofit organizations, and the campaign runs through mid-January. As of Jan. 4, 564 donors have given $158, 664, which local community foundations have matched for a total of $250,664.
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