My desire is for all children to have the opportunity to experience and actively engage in music.

Last year music teachers in Bradley County participated in professional development on incorporating critical thinking and the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy into music instruction.

As a result, this year our music teachers made a monumental decision and chose to move away from textbooks in order to achieve a more well-rounded learning experience.

After presenting our request to the school board and gaining approval, the fun began.

Each music teacher was given $6,000 to spend on musical instruments for students and performance equipment (MP3 players, keyboards, etc.). In order to be able to manage the order and receive the largest discount we could, we decided it would be best to combine all of our orders.

We decided which companies we would use after carefully checking on the quality of instruments and putting our order out for bid to find the best prices. By combining the orders we were able to receive substantial discounts, and in some cases even received free shipping, allowing us to purchase more than we ever dreamed.

In addition to the purchase of instruments, we were able to secure two supplemental teaching resources along with training for our teachers for less than the cost of new music books.

You cannot begin to imagine the excitement when a semi-truck full of drums and other instruments arrived at the central office.

Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music was one of the programs purchased for each of our schools. With it in our schools:

- We are able to offer a technology component to the students which they have not previously had in music.

- Teachers love that the students can make music at home, not just at school.

- They can also involve their families in their musical experiences.

Our teachers just completed the training provided by Quaver Music and are elated with the program.

It truly is a “wow” program for students that is entertaining and engaging. During the training, teachers were made aware of ways to connect learning across the curriculum.

Our hope is that by connecting music to other subjects, such as reading and math, the students will be encouraged to think critically. The quality of the training provided was very impressive and teachers enjoyed every minute.

Through the innovation of this program and being able to put musical instruments in the hands of our students, music will now come alive for our children.

Thanks to the efforts of dedicated teachers willing to step outside the box, our children will be able to go beyond seeing and hearing to active engagement in creating music.

Children will be taken to a whole different level of learning. The instruments that were purchased will provide students the opportunity to immediately apply the concepts learned in music class.