Pro-Music-News Drums & Percussion

Headline

With the Roots of Rhythm World Drumming for 5th and 6th Grade Classrooms curriculum continuing to grow— both in terms of content and participation— the Percussion Marketing Council has announced its expanded focus on collecting data that quantifies the effectiveness of the PMC and NAMM-sponsored program.
According to information taken from follow-up evaluations, during the 2005-6 school year over 150 teachers attended International House of Blues Foundation (IHOBF) Roots of Rhythm Teacher Workshops at IHOBF locations in Chicago, Orlando, San Diego, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Cleveland and Los Angeles while another 51 educators from the U.S., Germany and Egypt traveled to Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio to take a one-week, college-credit master class from ROR author, Dr. Craig Woodson.
The PMC reports that more than 85% of the attendees at these seminars were elementary school teachers and 65% were general classroom or other non-music instructors. These figures show that the project is reaching its intended end-users. One enthusiastic IHOBF Workshop participant commented that, “Kids love drums. Next semester I will use Roots of Rhythm when we study Egypt, South America and Asia. I’m going to have the students use the rhythms and make their own instruments.”
Post-event surveys also confirmed that many ROR teacher-training participants have purchased a variety of drums and percussion instruments from music retailers.
• Chad Askim, band director at Williston Middle School in Williston, ND reports that 138 of school’s 204 seventh graders have signed up to take his world drumming classes that were expanded to incorporate the Roots of Rhythm curriculum. Askim traded in some of his school’s unused band instruments for $2000 worth of world percussion at Jacobson Music in Minot, ND and has also redeemed soup cans and cereal box tops to purchase instruments at Ekroth Music in Bismark, ND. The teacher comments that the course has become so popular it has been added to the summer school program and that some students are now asking their parents for djembés instead of skateboards and video games.
- Janet Williams, a 3rd grade classroom teacher at C.H. Campbell Elementary school in the Youngstown, OH suburb of Canfield, used a PTO grant to obtain $2000 in world percussion from The Drum Shop in Struthers, OH and West Music in Coralville, IA. - One teacher who had attended an IHOBF workshop in Chicago took the time to send a note to the location Program Director indicating that he had greatly enjoyed the workshop and had bought a drum the following day to play with his students and friends.
David Levine, ROR committee chairman, points to these stories as examples of the 2-year old program’s success in creating new music makers/customers. “Thus far, the program appears to be working,” says Levine. “But, we are continually refining and expanding our efforts to monitor and evaluate the curriculum as well as to measure how effective it is in providing a return on the industry’s investment.”
Levine further indicates that the availability of the complete ROR curriculum and audio content on both the PMC and IHOBF websites has allowed it to be downloaded by countless anonymous visitors— potentially reaching hundreds of classrooms and thousands of students. As the program continues to grow, additional tracking methods are being developed and put in place by PMC with the results reported to the industry on a regular basis. “The PMC’s goal remains converting general classroom teachers and students into drummers and then connecting them with musical instrument retailers and manufacturers,” Levine adds. “By the time we’re done, we’re going to have one heck of a drum circle.” With the addition of IHOBF workshops in Atlantic City and Anaheim, plans for teacher-training seminars during the 2006-7 school-year include an expanded schedule of nearly a dozen IHOBF workshops plus at least two summer sessions hosted by Dr. Woodson. Discussions with other potential collaborators for additional events are pending.
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