Published in Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media
March 7, 2013
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| DEB FALING, LEFT, LIZ YOUKER, AND RACHEL BOOMSMA FOR KIDS IN TUNe (PHoTo by erik holladay, erikholladay.com) |
Kids in Tune is about more than teaching youngsters music. It's about support, nurturing, joy and acquiring life skills through the learning of music skills reports Zinta Aistars.
A kid who would give up recess to make time for another lesson? Never happen.
At Woods Lake Elementary at 3215 Oakland Drive, in the Kids in Tune program, however, that is precisely what did happen. And not just one child made such a choice, but 79 children voted to extend their music lessons rather than go outside to play.
For them, Kids in Tune is play. These children play musical instruments for two-and-a-half hours, four days of the week, as part of the Kids in Tune program, a collaboration of Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS), Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and Communities in Schools (CIS) of Kalamazoo. An after-school program launched in the fall of 2011, Kids in Tune is built on the Venezuelan philosophy known as El Sistema, founded by Dr. José Abreu.
This is the El Sistema philosophy: through passion and support, nurturing and joy, given a chance to know music intimately and personally, a child will learn life skills through the learning of music skills. As the orchestra of tiny musicians soars into another go at Beethoven, however squeaky it might be at moments, it appears that change is well under way at Woods Lake Elementary.
Standing at the back of the room, lips pressed into a smile, cheeks flushed, Youker listens. "It's working even better than I expected," she whispers.
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