On Volunteering: Lessons from the Ladies’ Room

Sometime towards the end of last week, I decided that instead of sitting in my safe, electrically-supplied apartment reading the news about Hurricane Sandy and visiting with friends, I should go out and actually help people who were affected by the storm. But volunteering brings up some very strange and conflicting emotions, mostly of the procrastinating/avoidance variety: how would I figure out where to go in Brooklyn? (Google, Jennifer.) What if they don’t need my services? (They do.) What if they need me for 8 hours only but I can only stay for 4? (You won’t know until you go.) I was about to go on Saturday when I read on Facebook that the Park Slope Armory was turning people away. Guiltily, I thought, “Oh, good. Now I won’t have to feel so bad about going to that party I was planning to go to instead.”

But I did make plans with a friend to get up at 7.30am Sunday, an almost Sisyphean task for me. The alarm went off, and as I lay there, I considered several reasons why I couldn’t go. I was exhausted and had recently gotten over being sick; I couldn’t possibly have a relapse and miss more work. There were undoubtedly many other volunteers who could help. Maybe my friend would cancel.

Well, she didn’t, and I felt equally discouraged and grateful for our holding each other accountable. We arrived at the Park Slope Armory around 8.30am, and there weren’t so many volunteers after-all. Just after arriving, I realized they really do need help. There are a few hundred people staying there, mostly elderly and mentally disabled who had been displaced from their homes in the Rockaways. I wondered who the volunteer leaders were—are they part of an organization? Had they been there all week? Turns out they were just like me, members of the community who wanted to help out and came to volunteer shifts whenever they could.  I began to feel really good that I had gotten out of bed.

During a short orientation, we were told about several tasks, including handing out the donation items, working with groups of residents in their rows of beds, cleaning the bathrooms and helping people use the toilet (to which I thought, Please, anything but that), and organizing supplies for the space.  When we went to get our assignments, I wondered if they would type-cast. Would they see me and think, She’ll be great for serving breakfast? Or walking the residents around the track for some exercise?

If type-casting were the case, then whatever it was in my appearance led the task assigner to take one look at me and say: “Bathrooms.” No! Anything but that! But I was there to help as I was needed, so what was I going to say? Sorry, I really would prefer handing out sweatpants? So I smiled, said something mean to myself about the girls behind me who looked pleased that they didn’t get bathroom duty, and walked over to the ladies’ room.

It was pretty clean. The volunteers who had been there before me showed me that we clean the toilets, and all surfaces that people touch, as soon as they finish using a stall. I was shown where the extra supplies were: adult diapers, trash bags, plastic gloves. This wasn’t going to be so bad, after-all.

Women started coming into the restroom, some in wheelchairs, some not. They hadn’t had showers since Monday, and we had been told that some of them may want to clean off with baby wipes in a stall. They were all friendly and greeted us warmly. We started chatting about various things. And slowly I began to notice that every woman who went to the sink to wash her hands would take some time to look at herself in the mirror, brush her hair, freshen up. One older resident, decked out in donated sweatpants, took out a red lipstick and put it on. After brushing her hair for awhile, she turned to the volunteers and asked, “How do I look?” Lovely! (It really was a great lipstick color.)  One volunteer complimented a resident’s hat. The resident looked delighted and replied, “Oh, thank you! I love this hat-- I got it in Jamaica, where I grew up.” This led to a conversation about the islands and the resident singing a song from her home country.

Then came a woman named Susan*. Susan had some mental disabilities, and was escorted to the ladies’ room by a young man. She told me she didn’t really need to go to the bathroom, but that all she wanted was a manicure. "My nails are in really bad shape," she said. "Do you have a nail file?” (We didn’t.) Then she said, “You know, I’d really just like to wash my hair. It’s been days.” I noticed some new hand towels, and small bottles of shampoo. Susan had very short hair, so I asked her if she’d like my help washing her hair. “Yes, please!” she said. I walked her over to a sink, covered her with one towel and began to wash her hair as she bent over the sink.  As I was giving her a little head massage, I realized that this woman probably hadn’t been touched in a very long time. I know that when I get my hair cut, the hair-washing part is my favorite. When we were done and Susan lifted herself back up, she looked like she was in a state of bliss. She thanked me and the other volunteer helping her, and then said, “That was just wonderful. You know, I really could use some lipstick. Do you have any lipstick?” (No, it seemed that beauty products took a back seat to supplies like toilet paper and water.)

Women continued to come in and out of the bathroom. Some had wet themselves, others needed assistance on the toilet, while others were volunteers waiting to bring residents back to their beds. And every single woman who came into that bathroom spent a few moments in front of the mirror, fixing herself up. Regardless of the fact that they hadn’t showered in days, were wearing other peoples’ clothes, were living in a cold strange place, they still sought to be beautiful, to look good for the world (or at least for their own image). One older woman came in and started to sing “I’ll Take Manhattan” with one of the volunteers, exclaiming,  “No one ever dances and sings along with me! This is wonderful!”

We laughed, we talked make-up and body lotion, we sang a little. And I thought, this isn’t that much different than the ladies’ rooms at the Met Opera, or anywhere else, for that matter. It’s a safe space where women bond, discuss life, apply their lipstick and fix their hair, occasionally compliment each others' clothes. It’s a place where we all feel safe to share a tiny piece of our shared femininity, whatever that little kernel is in many of us to strive to feel good about ourselves, no matter what position we are in. Shelter or opera, hospital or gala event, most of us women will still take a moment to look in the mirror, fix our hair and make-up, maybe even exchange a smile and a compliment with another woman. And as we leave that bathroom to whatever lives we have outside of it, we can hopefully feel comforted in knowing that we’re not alone.   

Later in the day, while buying more sweatpants for the residents, I bought some lipsticks and gave one to Susan. (I loved her first response before thanking me: What color did you get?) As I left the Armory, I whispered to the incoming women volunteers, "Ask to be stationed in the ladies' rooms. It's the most fun place in the building."

(If you're looking for a place to volunteer, the Armory will need people Sunday night, and most likely during the workweek during normal business hours. If you'd like to donate materials, the shelters are in need of large and extra-large sweatpants and underwear. And maybe some lipsticks and nailpolish...)

New Journey: To an Orchestra Committed To Making Connections

I am thrilled to start my new position as the Director of Education at the Orchestra of St. Luke's today. In this role, I'll be working with a wonderful team to strategize and implement programs that connect the orchestra deeply with its community.

The Orchestra of St. Luke's began as a chamber ensemble that met in Greenwich Village's Church of St. Luke in the Fields. It now presents an annual chamber music series, as well as full orchestral concerts, and diverse community and education programs. (And they have a really cool membership program if you're 45 years old or younger. Check it out here.)

I look forward to joining this dynamic organization, and to sharing the process of developing the education programs, so stay tuned!

Findings from the First National Needs Assessment of El Sistema-Inspired Programs (by Ben Fuller and Jennifer Kessler)

Preface: A slightly shorter version of this article was initially written by Ben Fuller and myself and published in the June issue of The Ensemble, a newsletter for the U.S. El Sistema Movement, co-edited by Eric Booth and Tricia Tunstall. For more information on The Ensemble, please write: TheEnsembleNL@gmail.com 

El Sistema Needs Assessment: The Data and What It All Means

Back in January, the 2012 Sistema Fellows surveyed self-identified El Sistema-inspired programs across the country for the first-ever National Needs Assessment. As a collaborative project by the New England Conservatory, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Longy School of Music, the National Needs Assessment sought to identify every El Sistema-inspired program in the U.S., collect basic information and quantitative data for every program, and identify successes, challenges, and needs of U.S. programs in order to give clarity and direction for the movement going forward.  The information gathered in countless hours speaking with program directors is a September 2011-January 2012 snapshot, representing a broad overview that is neither comprehensive nor perfectly accurate. We hope you'll look at this data as a launching pad to further questions around what we need to be successful in our work.

Basic Facts

• Approximately 7,000 students in 54 programs
• 54 programs with 91 sites (second sites are most often started in organizations 3+ years old)
• 9 hours of instruction/week on average (information on how many weeks per year was not obtained)
• Serving students from ages 2 to 17 (predominantly elementary-school aged)
• $1,800/child average expenditure
• 16 programs in the Northeast, 13 in California, 10 in the South, 9 in the Midwest, 6 in the West
• Sites include: 48 public schools (in or after-school not indicated), 18 community centers, 5 charter schools, 2 Churches, 2 Boys and Girls Clubs,1 Catholic private school, library

The Juicier Information

Programs overwhelmingly stated youth development, community development, music, and access as core values of their missions. Descriptions of the biggest successes of programs reflected their core values: 41% of program directors cited youth development, 32% cited musical growth, and 27% cited community development.

The most frequently cited “biggest challenges” were financial sustainability and funding (organizations with budgets greater than $500K listed “growth” as their greatest challenge). Almost all programs reported issues related to hiring qualified teaching artists and guiding them to implement the vision of the program.

What are the three greatest challenges that program directors believe teaching artists face in the classroom daily? 68% reported classroom management, 19% reported student attendance, and 13% reported teaching to mixed abilities.

There were mixed responses regarding type and amount of parental support, which included parents volunteering to organize events, serve as chaperones, and in some cases, serve on parental network committees. 61% of programs reported strong parental involvement, 24% reported some parental involvement, and 15% reported no parental involvement. Most organizations feel that the relationships with parents and families are excellent, and parental roles seem to mature as organizations grow.

Across all budget and years-in-service groups, program directors feel that the top key skills their students are learning are musicianship, discipline, self-esteem, and teamwork.


However, we were interested to discover this: most programs are not evaluating anything.

Programs that are evaluating tend to be focusing on musical evaluation. We wondered how programs know the skills that their students are taking away if they aren't evaluating the non-musical skills.

Cost per child: Based on a $230,000 average, $1811 per child. This is under the average recommended by the Wallace Foundation. It does not take number of sites, years in service, or weeks per year into consideration, and we know that several organizations are operating on a budget that suggests that there is no paid staff ($700- $15,000). Instead of $1800/per student being a number we should strive for, it could instead raise questions about what these numbers mean. In thinking about sustainability of organizations (particularly human resources), how can we shift from figuring out how little we can spend on cost per child to considering which elements are essential components for our programs' success and longevity, and what the long-term return on investment is for our programs?

Conclusions

Some principal findings of our survey are that evaluation and funding are really important, and that sharing resources such as repertoire, teacher training, and best hiring practices would be helpful to most programs. Perhaps more important than our findings are the questions raised. Why are we mainly in schools? Why are we mainly serving elementary-school children? When do we expand, and why? As Beth Babcock says, “Bigger is not necessarily better; better is better.”

While we were not surprised by most of the findings, we were interested to note that most of the challenges that El Sistema-inspired programs face are the same challenges that any other arts organization faces with arts education programs: recruiting and training teaching artists, supporting teaching artists in their work, meeting community needs, and fundraising. One major difference seems to be that El Sistema-inspired programs are - on the whole - rarely evaluating their musical and social outcomes, while many arts education programs are steeped in evaluation and assessment processes, so much so that it's possible to lose sight of what all of the documentation could be used for.

In terms of the social goals of our programs, what are the best ways to measure the outcomes of our work, in relation to the youth and community development values we all share? Here, we can look to assessment processes that the social sector has used successfully, such as the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS),  Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS), and the Child Behavior Checklist. We are at the beginning of our journey toward understanding how to fulfill our mission to make a difference in the lives of children.

Ruminations on the end of journey

On May 18, 2012, the Sistema Fellows graduated from an extraordinary year of delving not only into El Sistema, but into what it means to be a strong teacher, learner, colleague, and leader. Between the last post and today, we've been through a great deal, both as a group and individually. We finished an extensive business plan as a team as a consultant project for an emerging El Sistema program. It was a long and very intense process, that resulted in many people staying in the offices until very late at night for days on end. But what we created was a thoroughly researched and in-depth document, complete with a theory of change and logic model, a program design, and funding and marketing plans that can be a launch pad for action.

Some of us went to Chicago in April for the Drafting Convention of the new association/alliance/network of El Sistema-inspired programs. We spent two days in small groups exploring what by-laws might be appropriate for such an organization, what the role of an Executive Director would look like, and what the short and long term goals of the organization would ideally be. We discussed the hot topic of the name El Sistema USA, and after much debate, eventually agreed that we should consider other names, for many reasons. Now, small subcommittees are working on their action items, and if all goes well, an association could be born very soon. For all of the minutes from that meeting and the preceding phone calls, visit: http://musicassociation.wordpress.com/

Individually, people worked feverishly to launch their non-profits or get a job, while working on a final presentation of their program designs. Regarding the latter, we each gave a 1 hour + presentation on a topic of our choice to the other fellows, staff at NEC, members of the Sistema Fellows Friends Committee, and others. Topics included plans for the new programs, a workshop session on how to make the "ask" for money for a non-profit, and team-building best practices. I led a workshop session on funding, to share my findings from a funding research project I did in the fall (on the priorities of major grantmakers to programs with similar missions to El Sistema), and to brainstorm with everyone around an idea I'd had to launch a site that broadens the donor base to El Sistema-inspired programs. Once I update it a bit, I'll post the Power Point from that session.

After Venezuela, the weeks flew by quickly. We had a final session with Eric Booth to reflect on the year (where we drew what our year looked like, reminding me of the posters my friends and I would make in the 3rd and 4th grade of stories about our classmates); our final session with Beth Babcock, our strategy guru; a class on negotiation with Dr. Jeffrey Prottas; a course on marketing and branding with Chris Colbert of Holland-Mark; classes on interviewing and leadership with President Tony Woodcock; a session on leadership with the luminary Hubie Jones, founder of the Boston Children's Chorus; and a workshop on how we bring our perceptions of race and ethnicity to our roles as teachers and leaders, with the amazing Eder Williams of City Term and Linda Nathan, founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy. With each of these sessions, I left feeling enlightened; I had learned something that either challenged the way I saw the world, or introduced me to an entirely new concept that I had never before considered.

Graduation was beautiful. Dozens of friends and family members gathered at NEC, while we each stood up and shared a story about the year. I haven't been to many graduations, but this was by far the best: intimate and meaningful, minus the platitudes.

While most of us agreed it was time to move on, I do have to admit that as happy as I was to come back to New York City, I did feel an emptiness the first couple of days back. I mean, how often is it in life that you can completely indulge - every single day for 9 months - in sharing ideas and taking action on a topic you're deeply passionate about, with 9 other people and a host of experts in various fields? Thank you, New England Conservatory and everyone who was involved in making this possible, possible.

This is the slideshow that was playing as people walked into graduation. It may not mean much if you weren't a fellow, but I hope it will serve as an invitation into the world of 10 people who went on a journey of Sistema this year.

El Sistema Venezuela Wrap-Up: Meeting with Abreu, and Lessons Learned

We've reached the end of our 5 week journey discovering El Sistema in Venezuela. We taught all day, we met the warmest, most open-hearted people, we saw really, really hard work. We heard beautiful music everywhere we went.

On our last day, we had a chance to sit with Maestro Abreu and share a little about what we saw and what we'd improve. Sitting in a room with that man, after seeing first hand the work that is a result of his vision, was astonishing. This was a genius among us. And he sat there, smiling, and gave each one of us his full attention.

When he came to me, I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Should I talk about Soroco again, and how powerful an experience it was for me to see how music can literally live anywhere? Should I talk about how El Sistema isn't magic, but the result of strong vision and extremely hard work? Should I talk about the music making, or the intrinsic nature of access in everything El Sistema represents?

Instead, I spoke about 4 things that resonated profoundly with me on this trip:

1. The love of learning, permeating throughout the entire culture of Sistema. Everyone is hungry to learn. Kids want to learn more and more everyday. Teachers want to learn from experts. Families want to learn more about the music. Children want to learn from each other. What a beautiful space in which to live a life.

2. The love of teaching. Not just the love of teaching, but the need to teach, to give back. Great teachers gave so much to me time and time again in my life, and when I teach I feel that I have to give everything of myself because that is what my teachers gave to me. And this spirit of giving is so prevalent all throughout Sistema.

3. The democratic nature of music, both within the music itself and in terms of who can participate. Musically: jazz, folk music, choir, and orchestral music can (and according to many people I spoke to, SHOULD) live in the same place so that kids can have access to many ways of making music. Who can join: everyone can participate in music. Doesn't matter where you live, how old you are, who you are, what disabilities you have, or how much money you have. If you want to play, you can.

4. I didn't have a chance to mention this last one, but something that cannot be ignored, which my Fellow Jose Luis Estrada Hernandez talks about, is the music. The music! We heard so many beautiful concerts! So many children taking risks and committing to making daring musical phrases together, regardless of their level.

Maestro Abreu wanted to know what we'd improve. I learned so much from this trip that the few things I would suggest seem so minor in comparison to the great lessons I took away. But if I had to offer two thoughts, they would be:

1. Create even more opportunities for older students to thrive. The academy (a program for more advanced students to come to Caracas for private lessons with master teachers) is wonderful, but for kids in rural Venezuela and elsewhere who may not be going regularly to the academies, it would be great to get them accompanists on occasion and opportunities to solo with orchestra so that they can enjoy the full musical experience of the solos they're working on.

2. More opportunities for exchange among international artists, educators, administrators, and Venezuelans. The more people who can come to Venezuela and see the extraordinary work that's happening there first-hand, the more demystified the program might become so that many more people can bring the same energy, motivation, and commitment to music and children to their communities as El Sistema brings to Venezuela.

I would love to see a day when all of the world's major artists no longer see performance and education as two separate things. When institutions for higher education no longer separate music education from music performance. When there are more bridges between genres so that musicians can become more versatile musically, and in life. When young people no longer insist on hip hop, but also demand orchestras in their neighborhoods, and jazz ensembles, and choirs. I think that the more people who can come to Venezuela, and teach, learn, play, and ask questions, the better chances we have of tipping the scales in making music a focal point of society, to thrive in a life with a love of learning and playing.

Seeing El Sistema in Venezuela: The Music!

I realize as I'm re-reading my blog posts that there's something implied but glaringly missing: the extraordinary concerts and rehearsals we watched and participated in. And what concerts! As a French horn player, the chance to play alongside passionate, curious, and musical young musicians for me was both an honor and tremendous fun. And because El Sistema is all about that go-for-it attitude, I also enjoyed jumping into new waters and singing in choir rehearsals with my Fellows Aisha, Alysia, and Stephanie. Here, a few musical highlights from the trip:

• Attending a recording of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simón Bolívar Orchestra in Beethoven's 3rd Symphony.
  

• In Barquisimeto, Ben, Avi, Julie, Stephanie, and I played a concert with the Youth Orchestra of Barquisimeto. This is one of the rehearsals of Prokoviev's 5th Symphony, and it was wickedly exciting to play with several kids who have worked together for years.

• Look out, Broadway. In Valle de la Pascua, I played hookie from the orchestra rehearsal one day to experience a choir session that Aisha and Alysia were leading of "New York." I joined the altos. When the other girls found out I live in New York, they literally got up to move their chairs closer to me, then asked for my autograph. (Helllooo stardom!) Have I sung in choir before? No. Was this way more fun (and absolutely hilarious) than most orchestra rehearsals I've played? You bet...

• Up in Coro, we were invited to hear a concert for orchestra and four soloist singers. Each soloist was a couple years younger than the previous. So by the time this little girl (about 9 years old) came on the stage, we just about fell over when she opened her mouth to sing. The next Miss Venezuela, anyone?

• Also in Coro, some of the Fellows wandered over to a rehearsal for the all Ave Maria program. Stephanie, Ben, Aisha, and I joined the chorus, while Alysia sang the solo.

(For the dress rehearsal of this piece with the White Hands choir, visit the El Sistema and Special Needs blog and scroll down to the end.)

• During our final week, in Caracas, we had a chance to watch Southbank Centre's Marshall Marcus rehearse members of The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra in a Baroque program (unfortunately I didn't get footage of this, but believe me, it was very cool.) And another gem: hearing a beautiful performance of Mozart's Requiem, with the Symphonic Youth Choir Simón Bolívar and the Caracas Youth Symphony, led by Robert Göstl.

El Sistema and Special Needs

Two phrases we've heard frequently this year is "El Sistema is about access," and "El Sistema is for everyone." Jose Antonio Abreu really means it. As part of his vision for El Sistema, Abreu would say that if children with special needs cannot participate like other children in making music, then El Sistema needs to create opportunities for those children to thrive in music, too.

And that's exactly what El Sistema has done.

I had heard about the "Manos Blancos" choirs in Caracas and Barquisimeto, choirs of "White Hands," or, children who wear white gloves while making beautiful hand and arm gestures to the music because they are deaf or blind or mute. But it wasn't until Valle de la Pascua that I had a chance to experience the power of this program. Here, for the first time, we were introduced to the magnificent world of the White Hands choir:



After we watched them, the choir director brought all of the Fellows up to participate. It was really hard! According to the choir directors, there has been a whole curriculum developed around special needs choirs. The work is rigorous, and they rehearse just as often -- if not more often -- than the singing choirs.

I spent some time with the lead special needs teacher that day. She is almost blind herself, and finds the work with these kids to be extremely important in giving them a sense of achievement in participating in something challenging and beautiful.

This 7 year old was in a few of the special needs ensembles in Valle de la Pascua. When he played in the percussion ensemble, I was completely blown away. Check this out:



On our first day in Coro, we were brought to a room covered in old concert posters and awards of Jose Maiolino, the Coro nucleo director who started the program just a few years after Maestro Abreu started his first orchestras in 1975. The Manos Blancos Coro choir was rehearsing, and we had a chance to watch them in action (and sing along):



During our week in Coro, a few of us took a day trip to Punto Fijo, a small town that you get to by driving over a beautiful isthmus with goats frolicking along the beach (no, I'm not kidding-- there were frolicking goats.) After teaching horn for a few hours, I was shown around the nucleo by a lovely woman (who I later learned is the special needs director). She showed me to a room labeled "Manos Blancos," and, explaining that this was the special needs room, she apologized profusely that they didn't know we were coming and they were prepared for us. But once we walked in, a small choir of special needs kids stood up and gave me a private concert. It was some of the most impassioned singing I had heard the whole trip.


(For two more Punto Fijo special needs choir video, visit YouTube here and here.)

But what was perhaps the most moving moment for me was on one of our last days, in Coro. I had spent the week working closely with the horn players at the Conservatory and in Las Panelas nucleo, and the day before we left, the horn teachers asked if I would sit in on the dress rehearsal for their concert. The program was all Ave Maria works by different composers (Bach/Gounod, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms), with the professional choir from Coro, and the Manos Blancos.

I kept trying to turn around from the horn section (while playing) to watch, but when I finally had a piece off, I stood up and wept at one of the most beautiful performances I had experienced during the whole trip. (This clip is 5 minutes-- I'd recommend watching the whole thing, but even if you have 1 minute, you'll get the idea.)



Amen.

The Wonderful World of El Sistema Choirs

When we hear about El Sistema, the first thing that usually comes to mind is orchestra. So I was pleasantly surprised when we saw dozens of children singing in choirs everywhere we went. In fact, some modulos are almost exclusively choir-based. It's an excellent way to get several children involved in making beautiful music quickly.

Two different nucleo leaders even told us that they always start new nucleos or modulos with choir for about a year, to get the kids learning and performing music, to train teachers, and to fund-raise for instruments, so that when the instrumental program begins, everyone is ready for it, financially, educationally, and musically.

Here are a few of my favorite clips from the wonderful world of El Sistema choirs. (For more, visit the blogs Fellows Aisha Bowden and Alysia Lee.)


Baby Choir in Barquisimeto Works on Dynamics (these kids are between 2-4 years old)



A Children's Choir in Valle de la Pascua, Guarico, Greets Us with a Very Cool Tune



The Same Choir, Singing a Beautiful Song (if you know the name, please let me know)

An El Sistema Lesson: Music Can Grow Everywhere

Video of Soroco, a modulo near a dump site near Calabozo

All throughout our trip, we've been taken to various modulos (in-school Sistema initiatives) and told that many of the children both in the modulos and nucleos come from neighborhoods with very high crime, drug-use, and lack of essential resources like water and electricity. We've driven by neighborhoods with tin shack houses and concrete rooms missing doors and sometimes ceilings. We've heard stories of children who come to the nucleo because it's actually another -- and safer -- home.

But I didn't fully grasp this until a few of us visited Soroco, a school located next to a dump site near Calabozo. When we arrived, a lovely violin teacher took me on a walk around the school. She explained that the parents all work in the dump site, and, pointing to the shacks without doors surrounding the school, explained that this is where the children live.

Only 40 children attend this school, but we saw about 20. Some children were playing soccer outside, while a few others were studying in classes. Outside in the hot sun, a woman was cooking something while a baby played in a cardboard box as a playpen. The music teacher took me to a little kitchen, and said, "What you see here is all they have to eat. There is not enough money for meat, so they eat whatever we can get on a given day." I saw some rice, tomatoes, and something that looked like a root vegetable, but certainly not enough for 40 children.

"The culture is completely different here," the teacher explained. "It's an incredibly difficult life for these children. They have nothing."

So I asked her, "Would it be possible to create an after-school program here so that these kids can have a safe place to be after school?" And she looked at me and said, "That's not possible. These children, ages 5-8, go to work at the dump site after school so that they can make some money for their families to eat."

She continued by explaining the goals of this program here. The modulo is only a year old (having started with Venezuelan folk music), and children just received classical instruments in January. At this point, the goal is to prepare these children to be able to play well enough to participate in the ensembles at the main nucleo. But the longer term goal is to keep these children in the Sistema so that, instead of living a life at the dump site, they can identify other opportunities in their lives, such as working in music through teaching and playing.

Meanwhile, the other teachers were setting up some chairs, and the children began to take out violins, cellos, quatros, and even a bass. Julie Davis led a string class to the children outside, giving a few of the students opportunities to lead the lesson.

There weren't any brass players, so I found my way over to two little cellists to see what they were learning. Both of my parents are professional cellists, but I never really learned how to play. So I asked the 7 year old if he could show me how to hold a bow. (The following photos and videos courtesy of Albert Oppenheimer.)



After some time teaching, the nucleo leaders asked us if we'd like to go fruit-picking. Which might seem like a normal activity in other rural places, but looking around the school at the arid landscape and fields ridden with garbage surrounding us, we couldn't possibly imagine what they were talking about. Maybe we misunderstood the Spanish?

We began to walk down a path alongside the school. There was garbage everywhere. It looks like the people living in these houses have been using their backyards as a trash-dump. Everywhere you look (besides the path), you see garbage, half-dead dogs, some pigs, and chickens. And then we looked up, and there were hundreds of trees, bearing fruit! The nucleo leaders started picking the fruit for us, tamarinds, and something else (a small green fruit shaped like a walnut but smooth on the outside). Here, in the middle of a wasteland and dump site, grew fruit-bearing trees.

And as those children and music teachers back at the school strive through music, they, too, are planting the seeds of a tree that will bear them fruits of possibility for the rest of their lives.

Rural Sistema Programs, Part 3: Getting Started, and Teacher Training

What does it take to get a modulo or nucleo up and running in a place like the outskirts of Calabozo or Valle de la Pascua?














This is where the Sistema lends itself particularly well to programmatic development. Teachers from neighboring cities come regularly during the course of one year (twice a month in many cases) to train older students on their instruments so that they can take over the teaching and leadership. Over the course of the year, the master visiting teachers come less frequently and the student teachers take on more leadership responsibilities.

Some programs might have an advanced teacher move to or near the town for awhile to help get the program started, and to be as invested as possible in developing the student teachers who will be running the program once the advanced teacher leaves.

Imagine! It's like setting up an extraordinary leadership academy for young people: they receive intensive training by master teachers, they're given lots of responsibility, and then they have the honor of teaching for and shaping the program. Brilliant.


Fellow Jose Luis (left) translates for Sergio about the young teachers in Valle de la Pascua