And so it begins...

mendel

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As many of you know, I've been running an unofficial Uke Club in the school where I teach. It is unofficial because the administration will not approve a club charter. Regardless, I always have kids become interested because I always have one out about during class. A student recently purchased a Luna Concert size cutaway acoustic electric in purple with flower designs on it. It is a REALLY nice sounding Uke. I was very surprised at how heavy it is, though. Anyway, I have several others who have purchased Makala Dolphins and we play whenever we have the chance to. We are about 4 weeks or so into the new school year and the Uke players are growing rapidly. I am very excited about it. I just wanted to share.
 
Well, congrats, Mendel!

One of the local high schools around here had a student teacher in the music department who played Uke, and she was working with the chorale on some Uke related things. I lent the dept. chair a copy of THE MIGHTY UKE, and they played it for some of the classes, but I haven't heard if they have had enough interest for a ukulele club or not. I've since lent the DVD to one of the elementary music teachers, and hope that that pushes some buttons.


-Kurt

(BTW, how went the dissertation?)
 
That is so awesome!

:shaka:

JJ
 
Ahhhhh, the good old politics of the School Board system. I know a retired couple who taught ukulele for 30+yrs and used to volunteer their time and money for equipment getting a lot of kids interested in playing. They had so many kids interested, they couldn't afford to purchase any more loaner ukes and kept approaching the school board for budget approvals and/or addition of the uke as part of the curriculum. They tried unsuccessfully for a number of years with the School Board who only wanted kids to play the recorder instead of the uke. They eventually gave up much to their disappointment as they were getting too old to lug all that gear back and forth from the car to the various classrooms etc. They came to the conclusion that the School Board was probably made up of non-musicians just looking at dollar figures who grew up playing recorders when they were in school.

A distant acquaintance of theirs (Juno award winner Melanie Doane) is now pursuing a similar objective of getting impoverished school kids playing in her Ukulele for Children program. Supposedly she's having just as much luck as the retired couple did in getting funding.

Good luck with your club and I hope it does get approved eventually.
 
Sounds great. Glad to hear it is going well.
 
That's really cool, Richard! Are you familiar w/ James Hill's "Ukulele in the Classroom" program? Lots of assistance available there as well as some free resources that you may find useful, such as:

http://www.ukuleleintheclassroom.com/resources_C6.htm

And if you aren't familiar w/the Online ezine, Ukulele Yes!, its a great resource as well.
 
hey Mendel!
Congrats to you on your club. So awesome. I am glad to see that you can bring something so awesome and positive to your students. The young people need it so much! Congrats to your student on her (?)Luna (The concert floral)I have the same one and I love it so much. When I picked up Kurts vita I fell in love as well. It is SO light and sounded so beautiful..
Best of luck with the club and keeping everything going.. Just awesome!!
 
Good for you!

I've been trying to work with some local grammar schools about starting some sort of 'ukulele club, but am stumbling around blindly because:

1. I am just unable to personally do anything with an after-school program since I am at work until about 5 or 6 every day
2. I don't have the money needed to seed a program with instruments or other materials
3. Even if I did have the time, being still a beginner myself, I don't have the knowledge or expertise to actually volunteer my services

It's pretty frustrating, because some of the school officials I've spoken with do seem open to the idea. But budgets being what they are, they can't afford to take on anything like this on their own, so it would have to come from outside. And it's a shame, because so far I've turned on three kids to the uke.

Ah well, it's really nice to see someone is getting some success!
 
Very, very cool. :)
 
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