Memo to: Participants in the class project
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From: Malcolm Mitchell and Don Roberts November, 2002Memo to: Members of the Yale Class of 1957 From: Malcolm Mitchell and Don Roberts Re: 1957’s Music in Schools Initiative - The Class Project Our class can now claim paternity of a live, and very lively, music program for over 500 New Haven school children in grades K-4. Several classmates recently paid two visits to the Lincoln-Bassett School for a first-hand look at the program, initiated this year as part of the New Haven leg of our class project. The program is run by Education Through Music (ETM), a New York-based educational foundation, and funded through a grant from the Yale School of Music to the New Haven Public Schools. The grant was made possible by a gift from the Class of 1957 to the School of Music. A letter describing the funding of the program and how classmates may visit the school to see the program for themselves will be sent shortly to the class. Representing the class at the visits were Binky Davis, Gus Kellogg, Dave Mininberg, Malcolm Mitchell, Don Roberts, and Nick Tingley. Professor Paul Hawkshaw, of the Yale School of Music, and Claudia Merson, Yale's Public School Partnership Coordinator, were also part of the visiting team. On October 28, we saw the program in action at the school and were then hosted by Music School Dean Robert Blocker at a gracious luncheon attended also by officials of the New Haven Schools, including Superintendent Reginald Mayo. Then on election day, November 5, we took part in a Teacher's Workshop Day devoted to "Connecting Music and Literacy for Educators, Parents, Guardians, and the Community." ETM's music teachers gave a series of training sessions for about 175 teachers from Lincoln-Bassett and other New Haven schools, in which they demonstrated how music can be integrated into all classroom activities, and especially into literacy development. We all experienced the excitement that New Haven teachers seemed to feel in the sessions, and some of us had hands-on lessons with violins and flutes that revived the thrill of actually making music. A note that Paul Hawkshaw sent to us summed up the success of the workshops. He wrote: "The feedback about yesterday's workshops has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone was very excited about the day. It was an unqualified success!" At the opening ceremony for the workshops, Don Roberts, on behalf of the class, accepted a plaque from Dr. Regina Lilly-Warner, Supervisor of Music for the New Haven Schools, thanking us for bringing the music program to the Lincoln-Bassett school. The plaque will be on hand at the class dinner next spring in New York and at future class events. School Superintendent Mayo was especially gracious to our class in his remarks at the ceremony. We'll report more on the project in coming months. We urge all classmates to log on to the project website -- www.musicinschools.org -- which Phil Richards has created and is maintaining. The years from now until our 50th reunion will be filled with additional efforts, in which we hope all classmates will join, as we work to promote enhanced music education in schools across the country. |