Learning to Music . . .

ogers believes that teacher frustration helped get things rolling. "It’s apparent from our workshops that people go into teaching because it’s an art form—they want to create," he says. "If everything is dictated and prescribed, the art is lost." By the end of the day, ideas were percolating, and teachers were laying the groundwork for a year of instruction featuring oral histories collected by students.

Although each cohort of fourth-grade teachers shapes the program to fit its community and students, some ideas have proved universal. The Music Matters Journal, devised by the Gamewell teachers, is the project cornerstone for most cohorts. Students start the year with journal entries detailing their musical predilections and move to interviewing each other, their parents, and a variety of local musicians about music.

These activities not only hone language skills and analytical thinking, but they also help children learn to ask good questions. "If you think about it, there are few times in children’s lives when they’re in control of the information they’re given," Rogers says. "Kids are great at asking questions when they’re two and three years old; once they start school the tables are turned, and adults ask all the questions."

In Surry County, students’ interviews with musicians air on WPAQ, a popular AM radio station. In Caldwell County, a teacher used diddley bows—small, single-stringed instruments—of varying lengths to teach students to calculate and plot range. "The project is all about local variability—it can take very different forms," Hinson says.

In contrast to CMC, most schools treat the arts as a frill—limited to periodic visits from art and music teachers, trips to hear a symphony, or strolls through a museum. While these can be illuminating experiences, Grumet wonders if they might also be sending a message that the arts that animate children’s daily lives aren’t as valuable.

"I think it’s important that in CMC the sense of what is good is not narrowly defined," she says. CMC’s wide scope is reflected in the children’s journal entries, which are heavy with pop music initially but can include blues, bluegrass, and gospel by year’s end.

Anecdotal evidence of CMC’s influence abounds. One Gamewell student who avoided participating in class was so captivated by a musician playing spoons that he experimented with every spoon in his house and, emboldened by his enthusiasm, demonstrated what he’d learned to his class. "I think the project has the potential to help marginalized kids find an entrée into learning," Rogers says. Hinson concurs. "The music can help a student connect, and without that connection, a student can float disengaged through school," he says.

The buzz about CMC means more schools want to participate, and in 2001, thanks to a $90,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant, the number of schools involved rose to nine. Excited as they are by CMC’s progress, Hinson and Rogers fear the standardization that statewide adoption might bring.

"It’s got to maintain its local focus," Hinson says. "If the structure is dictated, the project could become an imposition that inhibits teachers."

Schools clamoring to enter the CMC fold need not despair—help is in the works. The NEA grant allowed Hinson and Rogers to hire a project coordinator and begin work on a web site. "The goal is to create ways for teachers to share on-line what they do in their classrooms," Rogers says. It won’t be a collection of lesson plans or static exercises. "What will emerge will be narrative vignettes that give teachers a sense of what is possible," Hinson says.

That suits Jerri Eller just fine. A teacher at Blue Ridge Elementary in Ashe County, Eller watched her students come alive and the fourth grade form a cohesive group through CMC. "Even if the project ended tomorrow, I would continue to incorporate CMC into my way of teaching because students gain too much from it to keep it from future students," Eller says. "Why end a good thing?"

Hinson participates in the Carolina Speakers program; for information, see www.unc.edu/depts/uncspeak/.