Xi'An, CHINA - Native American Flutes & English (2006 - 2008)

In this course we crafted flutes making sure that the decoration used both Chinese and English language themes.
I was impressed by the diligence and attention to detail of the students.

The student on the far right wrote the word "COMPOSURE" on his flute. He hoped that playing it a little bit before going to bed would help him calm down and sleep well the night before a test.

Xi'An, CHINA - Know Yourself (2006 - 2008)

This is a class of students who enrolled in the course to prepare for university studies abroad.
One of the purposes of the course was to encourage critical thinking and creativity. When one of the students put Chairman Mao on the bulletin board I asked all of the students to participate in decorating the room with images or art that was important to them.

The idea was to create a classroom collage which would serve as part of an ongoing discussion about culture and identity. 

Xi'An, CHINA - Team Work Architecture (2006 - 2008)

These four students worked together for about 45 minutes to create a model of a building meant to hold some of China's finest artistic treasures.
They used different colored construction paper, tape, and scissors.
They decided on an overall design and structure, divided up tasks, and went at it.

Xi'An, CHINA - Picture Presentations (2006 - 2008)

I found that my Chinese students had had few opportunities to talk in front of a group of people; they were very nervous and uneasy about being in the spot light.
I decided to use pictures as the source of inspiration; the students worked in pairs and had to develop a short story about 2 pictures that they received.
They spent 5 - 10 minutes developing the story and the presentation.
Then they shared their stories with the class.

By the end of the course, I was pleased to see some of my shyest students with low English proficiency, speaking loudly and clearly, and at ease.

Xi'An, CHINA - Writing Activity (2006 - 2008)

Part of the purpose of this exercise was to have the students respect each others work in close quarters.
I gave each student a card with a Chinese character on it, and asked them to write a short explanation, telling why this word was important to them.

As they finished I asked them to decorate their writing area, RESPECTING, the areas of the other students. 

To finish, we corrected the grammatical mistakes together.

Xi'An, CHINA - Virginia Tech Condolences (2006 - 2008)

This group of students decided to send condolences to the Virginia Tech campus in April of 2007, after the shootings. They asked about how such a thing could happen, it was so crazy to them that at first it almost seemed comical. We decided to talk about it and think about how the families and friends must have been feeling. Each student wrote a note of encouragement for the families and friends of the victims to be sent together in a package.
Another part of the care package that we prepared was Chinese calligraphy.
We went to a part of Xi'An full of calligraphers and found an artist who wrote a traditional Chinese blessing for the Virginia Tech community.
He had a list of translations of blessings and proverbs that we could choose from.

This is the kind man who wrote the blessing, and one of my students checking out the work.

MADRID, SPAIN - Native American Flute Workshop (2008)

I volunteered to do a flute making workshop at a community center in the Barrio de Prosperidad in Madrid. It was part of a longer music course for people in the community.
There were plenty of different opportunities for team work.

They decorated their flutes with beads and string and were very proud of the results.

LONG ISLAND, NY (2004 - 2006, 2008)

This is the culminating activity of a workshop I did with Lea Abrams at the Ross School. Here the kids are rehearsing for the assembly show where they demonstrated the music they could make on their Native American Flutes.
This is another activity at the Ross School where the students are experimenting with different pieces of bamboo to try to make a musical sound.
This is from the first workshop I did at the Ross School - besides making Native American flutes, we also made a Pan Flute for Lea Abrams, the 4th grade teacher.
I have taught Arts and Crafts at Camp DeWolfe for 3 summers - here are some of the kids with their painted flutes.
I like to teach a beading method which I learned Mexico. It's a traditional method used by the Huichol nation which lives north west of Mexico city.

In this workshop at the Greenport Library I recorded some music for each participant on their flute, and gave them some pointers on how to get the best sound from their flute, and how to develop some melodies.