Fall 2011 Newsletter

MILE Enters Second Year of $1.2 million DOE Grant

Students in the MILE program

The Music Integrated Learning Environment (MILE) program is entering its second year of implementation of a $1.2 million DOE grant in the Oakland Unified School District. In collaboration with MUST and the Music-in-Education National Consortium, MILE is researching how integrating music into other academic subjects improves teacher instruction and student performance in the arts and other core academic areas.

Through MILE, teachers receive up to 40 hours of professional development annually and create music-integrated units of study for students to explore. Topics include “The Physics of Sounds,” “Jazzocracy,” “Gold Rush Musicals,” and “Reading & Rhythm.”

Last school year, 22 units of study were created between four Oakland schools: ASCEND, Cleveland, Lafayette, and Thornhill Elementary. An additional 12 units have been created for this school year, and we are looking forward to more! Visit the MILE website at www.oaklandmileproject.org.

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Save the Date for Silicon Valley Rocks!

Silicon Valley Rocks is taking place at DNA Lounge this year on December 1st from 7p.m. until midnight. See bands from the tech community venture onto the big stage to let their alter egos shine. Visit www.svrocks.com to learn more and buy your tickets online today!

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MUST Embarks on Capacity-Building Initiative

MUST’s programs and organizational needs have grown over the last few years, despite the challenging economy. MUST is fortunate to have the services of Tom DeCaigny of Canopy Consulting (former Executive Director of Performing Arts Workshop) leading our Board and staff through a strategic planning process that will determine our advancement strategy and organizational priorities for the next three years.

A recent survey of MUST stakeholders identified MUST’s culture and history as one of growth, entrepreneurial spirit, and innovation. So, while fund diversification and organizational capacity-building are challenging in today’s economic environment, the support that Canopy Consulting provides MUST reflects this culture and will support our sustained growth and development of quality youth programming for years to come.

MUST plans to meet the following objectives: improve our financial position with 100% participation from the Board of Directors; complete a development audit focused on sustained diversification of revenue; complete a programming, marketing and development plan; define clear three-year outcomes and measures of success for our youth programs; and better articulate the role of our research and advocacy efforts in helping to ensure that all young people receive a quality music education.

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Hillside Elementary

Hillside's June Culminating Event Presentations

We are thrilled that Hillside Elementary chose MUST to help them develop an arts program. This San Leandro school received a school improvement grant last year from the DOE. Their dream is to turn Hillside into an arts magnet. We started with an after-school music program last year, and this year we are incorporating visual arts.

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Welcome to REAL

Karen Calhoun

This June, thirty-seven teachers made music together and described how they would use it to teach their children at the San Francisco Unified School District’s Science/Art Integration Institute. Los Angeles Music master teacher and VAPA Coordinator Karen Calhoun led the MUST Rhythm Enhances Academic Learning (REAL) workshop, helping teachers create rhythms of the seasons and make connections to their own teaching.

Norwalk-La Mirada Students Participating in REAL

MUST supports the music program in Karen’s District, Norwalk-La Mirada (NLMUSD), in Los Angeles. MUST was honored when NLMUSD chose us as their non-profit partner in 2009, after the Los Angeles Music Center completed a research study at Morrison Elementary School with our mutual collaborator, the Music in Education National Consortium.

Since then, we’ve been supporting Karen’s brainchild, the REAL program, at our Learning Lab at Morrison and in nine other schools in this under-served school system. REAL has a three-year track record in improving student test scores and enhancing students’ social emotional development. The program offers one day-long professional development (PD) and follow-up sessions to participating pre-K-5 teachers during the school year. During the initial REAL PD, participating teachers learn basic rhythm and to listen, to understand, and to actually make music. They stay in the moment and maintain focus, the key to all learning. They learn basic concepts of music integration and teaching for transfer. In doing so, they model what they will teach their children throughout the year.

REAL presenters offer evidence of the power of using rhythm as a tool to close the achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students. They demonstrate how REAL offers an extremely cost-effective way to help children with their social-emotional growth, engaging teachers and students in learning through the pleasure and direct connection that rhythm brings to the classroom.

The foundation of REAL’s research base comes from the work of Martin Gardner, who wrote in “Music, Learning and Behavior: A case of Mental Stretching” that “the right kind of music training can support some of the cognitive development on which math and reading progress depend, helping also with the development of social or personal skills.”

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