 |   27694 -  from John (USA) - 2008-11-05
Primary school : "Music and Dance Around the World"
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This whole idea began with the after school program, Heads Up, providing us with some African drums. Mr. Golinsky, our Physical Education teacher, and I teamed up to do a joint program of African drumming and dance. The students responded with eagerness and wonderful desire to learn. We reached out through numerous avenues, and were rewarded by getting in touch with a professional drum from Senegal. He helped with rhythmic ideas and techniques, for the age groups we were teaching. As a class, we even corresponded with him live over the internet via web cams. This program was such a success that Mr. Golinsky suggested that we expand the program to include world music, dance, and games.
In implementing this program, we discovered that our students were lacking in their education. In the elementary setting, a large emphasis is placed on reading and math, resulting in subjects like world cultures and geography to be almost non-existent. Our idea is to expose the children to different countries and cultures around the world; and what better way than through music and dance. This being such a rural county in West Virginia, many of the students don’t even leave the county let alone know anything of the world around them.
The elementary music and physical education areas receive no budget; therefore Mr. Golinsky and I are running the program without funds. Everything that we use is information that we can glean, from sources like the internet. It would be such a gift to be able to place a real instrument in the hands of the student instead of looking at a picture or to learn a game or dance that children play in another part of the world.
We would love to correspond with students in different counties and learn what life and the arts are like there, and with technology even talk to them. In these perilous times when the world is full of mistrust and hatred what a marvelous way to bridge the gap between our different cultures. We have plans to show the students the dress of the countries, and the possibility to even provide some cultural dress for our students to try. I think it would be a great benefit to both the elementary school and the college, to involve some of Glenville’s students; utilizing their own cultures, customs, and experiences from within and outside of the country. We plan to end the year with a small banquet serving dishes from the places we discovered and show our guests some of what we have learned.
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