South Bronx Rock Stars

Vital Stats

Andrew H

Bronx, NY

  • people helped60
  • People Doing It30

The Problem

I teach seventh grade English in the South Bronx. Our school hosts a diverse student body, including students from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, West Africa, Bangladesh, and other areas. The congressional district in which my school is located is among the most economically challenged in the country. When I came to my school two years ago, there was no music program. Within my first year of teaching, the arts program was cut, and my school had to ask content area teachers to teach gym once a week to keep physical education alive. Growing up, I was lucky enough to attend a middle school in which band, orchestra, art, and physical education were all on the schedule. These programs offer students a wider variety of settings in which they can show their talents and making them available is an important step towards building a school community that is accessible to everyone. My project is to make music available in my school to any student who wants it.

Plan of Action

One of the reasons why our project has been exciting for students is that we continue to expand. Every time we figure out a way to bring in a new instrument or schedule a new performance, students come back with ten new ways to grow our organization: "We should make a cd!" "We should make a music video!" "We should make t-shirts!" "We should play in other schools!" With the students providing plenty of ideas about how to take our program to the next level, Mr. Story and I have begun enlisting more teachers and students to work with us on related projects. One teacher has agreed to teach his students about video production and shoot a music video. Another is taking a business/design angle and creating band merchandise that will be sold for fundraising. Along with incorporating more projects into our program this year, Mr. Story and I also look to reshape what we do in rock stars. Last year, during talent period and after school, we focused on musical performance. We taught students how to play their instruments through songs that we learned together as a band and then performed at a concert. This year, our goal is to grow into a program that provides the type of musical education that our students could use practically after middle school. We plan to begin the year teaching sight-reading and basic music theory so that students who pass through our program will be prepared to audition for New York City's performance-based high schools. On our way off the stage after one of our most recent performances, one of my students-- hearing the audience applaud-- turned to me and asked, "Can we play it again?" Another, in a speech delivered at an award ceremony, cited performing on stage with the rock stars as the most memorable moment of her school year. Just about every day at lunch, students come to my room to practice their instruments with each other and decide on new songs to learn, instead of going to recess. I want to take the excitement and sense of community that our program has already generated and build it into a project that will give students the skills to make music their own.
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