By EVELYN BARGE Palisadian-Post Intern It’s Monday morning at Short Avenue Elementary School in Venice, and musician Christo Pellani is handing out egg shakers in every color to the students in Matt Snyder’s fifth-grade classroom. An air of excitement hangs in the room, as each student resists the urge to begin shaking away. Palisadian Brad Kesden stands at the front of the room, guitar in hand. Once the shaker instruments have been distributed, it is only a moment before the classroom has erupted in a musical frenzy. The kids shake in rhythm and sing along to “These Stars are Your Stars,” which is played in the tune of the Woody Guthrie classic “This Land is Your Land.” The musical performance is just one of many that are part of today’s lesson, titled “Back Through the Stars,” a unit of study on astronomy. The students, led by Pellani, will also conduct classical music from composer Gustov Holst’s “The Planets Suite,” with each table in the classroom playing along as a different section of an orchestra. Thanks to Rock the Classroom, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Kesden, this interactive musical experience has become part of the regular curriculum for fifth graders at Short Avenue, a Title I school where 68 percent of the students participate in the National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-cost lunches to qualifying children. Before forming Rock the Classroom, Kesden was working as a writer with experience in books, film and children’s television programs. He began collaborating with celebrities such as Ray Romano and Paul Reiser on major book-writing projects. But the stress of working with celebrities and the growing pressures from big-name book publishers soon led Kesden to realize he wanted out of the entertainment industry. After another celebrity book-writing deal turned sour, Kesden said he decided to look for a new line of work. “Now I had to figure out what I was going to do for a living,” he said. Around the same time, Kesden and his daughter Lena joined the Indian Princesses troop at the Palisades YMCA. He soon formed a friendship with two other fathers in the troop’Richard Foos, founder of Rhino Records, and Adlai Wertman, head of the nonprofit organization Chrysalis that helps poor and homeless people find jobs. “I was just getting to know these guys, when Richard said he always wanted to start a free music program for kids in public school,” Kesden said. “He asked me if it was something I’d like to try to do.” Kesden began researching existing arts programs in schools. “I didn’t want to try to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “It seemed like there were probably a lot of great programs out there that just need money.” In the process of researching, Kesden said he discovered that the obstacles were greater than he initially imagined. “Everyone knows that the arts have been cut to almost nothing in public schools,” Kesden said. “What we didn’t know is that, in this climate of No Child Left Behind standards for teaching the core curriculum, we could go into any school and tell them we want to bring in the greatest free music program ever, but they just don’t have time. If you fall behind in teaching the core curriculum, you’re going to get fired, because they have to keep these kids on point all the time.” Kesden said he realized that, in order to provide Title I public schools with free music programs, Rock the Classroom would have to find a way to incorporate its artistic vision into the existing curriculum requirements. So, with the aid of a curriculum consultant, Rock the Classroom developed an approach in fall 2003 that would reinforce the basic curriculum through a creative, musical experience. “Our approach has just resonated incredibly with educators,” Kesden said. “We really are doing two things at once. Our program meets both the state literacy standards and the state visual and performing arts standards.” The first school to open its doors to Rock the Classroom was Cheremoya Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles. The nonprofit group brought in professional musicians to visit the fifth-grade classroom on a weekly basis. “We send in a guy with a drum, or a keyboard or a guitar and one of our lesson plans,” Kesden said. “Then they’ve got a great class that reinforces the literacy program and teaches them about music.” Rock the Classroom musicians are all professionally trained, take orientation lessons and have a background in teaching. “They go to the school once a week for a whole year,” Kesden said. “They really form a bond with the kids.” Rock the Classroom’s first group of students at Cheremoya spent eight weeks studying a Civil War unit. “We came in and showed them some of the building blocks of music, like rhythm, melody and harmony,” Kesden said. During their studies, the children learned the poem “Harriet Tubman” from their textbooks and then rapped the poem to different beats. “We have them rap it, because it’s fun and that’s the kind of music they listen to,” Kesden explained. “But, to rap it and get it to fit to the beats, the kids have to know where the syllable breaks, which means they also have to know how the word is spelled.” The students also studied the origins and varieties of the blues, which began with the slave songs of the period. At the end of the unit, the students synthesized their knowledge and wrote original blues songs about the Civil War. Each song was required to follow a rhyme scheme, illustrate a specific Civil War figure, utilize simile and metaphor and capture a sense of pain and loss ‘ all essential elements of any blues song. The students performed their songs in groups, and each received a CD with a recording of their performance. “We always bring it back to the text and the material they have to know,” Kesden said. Now, less than two years since Rock the Classroom developed a way of teaching standard lessons through music, the program has been introduced in nine schools with over 550 participating students. One of the participating schools is located in the Bronx. The other eight are Los Angeles-area schools. “It’s just taken off,” Kesden said. “We were able to figure out this approach that other people have been struggling with in terms of the arts.” Kesden, who grew up in New York and moved to Los Angeles with his wife Celia Bernstein in 1988, said he has enjoyed seeing the students at Title I schools respond to the interactive musical experience. “These kids treat you like a rock star,” he said. “They are just not getting the exposure to all the same things that kids in more privileged neighborhoods are. Just that fact that somebody shows up to do something with them, they can’t believe it. They can’t believe someone values them and takes an interest.” He added that the students are not the only ones who take something away from a Rock the Classroom lesson. “There is nothing I would rather do than sit in class with those kids,” he said. “These kids are so starved for something creative, something they’ve barely been exposed to in any other way, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it.” Kesden said he envisions a bright future for Rock the Classroom, and he hopes the organization will be able to bring music to elementary school children nationwide. “I’d like it to be in every elementary school in the country,” he said. “Now that we’ve got something that we can see really works and is easily replicable, it’s really just a question of expanding it.” For more information, visit www.rocktheclassroom.org.
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