What is Guitars In The Classroom?

An “Elevator Pitch” for the Long Ride Up

Dave Leonard, Linda MacFarlane, Jessica Baron, Alan Chase, Della Peretti, Judy Ginsburgh and Harvey Levy!

Educators and child care providers with little or no musical background can now learn to use guitars, singing, and songwriting across the curriculum in their classrooms for free. The purpose of Guitars in the Classroom (GITC) is to train, support and encourage teachers who want to integrate music-making in their lessons and daily school activities. Many teachers around the country are now strumming and singing as they introduce, reinforce, enrich and extend lessons in every subject area. Songs that motivate students to better learn spelling, rhyming patterns, language fluency, vocabulary, social studies lessons, math and science are offered weekly as part of each Guitars in the Classroom course. The program is free to teachers and if they do not have a guitar, one is provided for them (on loan) along with instruction to get them playing, singing and leading simple songs. The program is sponsored by many generous manufacturers of musical instruments and accessories as well as by NAMM, The International Music Products Association and GAMA, the Guitars and Accessories Marketing Association.

Largely by word of mouth, GITC has fanned out from its California base, spawning programs in more than two dozen states. Regional coordinators and instructors, usually music specialists or local guitar instructors, train thousands of classroom teachers each year. Jessica Baron started the GITC program in 1998 largely in response to the increased need for the preservation of music-making in educational settings and the great musical potential she saw in her educational colleagues in schools where she served as a music specialist.

GITC’s founder and executive director points out that such creative approaches as using a guitar and song-based learning work wonders with most students including “unconventional learners, anxious and hyper-active children, kids with a wide variety of disabilities, and those who are just learning to speak and read English”— the same students, she says, who are often marginalized by the current focus on standardization.

Jessica holds a Bachelor’s degree in child development, and a Masters degree in clinical psychology began teaching guitar at age 12. She explains the situation this way: “Regular classroom teachers wanted to add music to the school day, but most lacked the training to do so. They did not aspire to be music educators, but to become comfortable music facilitators for their students. Meanwhile, money for traditional music education was drying up. To support the survival of music in schools, and further, to help teachers integrate music into cross-curricular activities, I began piloting GITC, one experimental program at a time. Working with guitars made total sense since they are portable, relatively inexpensive and—perhaps most important—they carry social currency. Playing guitar seems to immediately transform a teacher’s status to that of a rock star,” she explains.

Now, joined by hard-working advocates, advisors, instructors, and a highly motivated board of directors, GITC’s team is making a difference. The program is gaining momentum and popularity through grass roots support.

GITC differs from other school-based guitar programs because it offers teachers who have always dreamed of learning to play the chance to do that with no financial risk, using an instantly gratifying, useful, and pain-free approach to playing without the pressure of criticism. Group lessons continue for years, as long as teachers continue to re-enroll.

“It’s all about discovering the joy of making music,” says Baron. “More than half our participants had never picked up a guitar. Others are returning to guitar after having given it up years before. And whether they are shower singers or choral members, teachers quickly become comfortable enough with the guitar to trust the magic of their own voices, and to express their musicality in service of helping children become more successful students and happier people. The teachers’ leadership and creativity inspires kids to open up and give themselves to learning every day. Music is an infinite medium.”