My Nonprofit Reviews
Kristina Beecher
Review for Education Through Music, Inc., New York, NY, USA
I am writing to express my appreciation and praise for Education Through Music’s work with the P.S. 3/The Bedford Village School, located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. We have sustained a partnership with ETM for more than a decade. They support and participate in our efforts to provide music education for all of our students.
Their teaching artists instruct our students in general, vocal and instrumental music. They provide professional development for our staff by modeling lessons that can be taught by classroom teachers and integrated into their core curriculum teaching. They assist classroom teachers in implementing musical projects with their students, as well. Frequent concerts, organized by their teaching artist, showcase students’ learning and musical abilities and provide experiences to attend musical performances. Additionally, ETM has purchased instruments and a library of music-related trade books for use by our students and teachers.
ETM works with P.S. 3’s School Leadership Team and me to plan for and implement comprehensive sequential-skills music education that will also support cognitive development and academic achievement in all subject areas. Our students are musically talented and many of them graduate to participate in music education in middle school. Parents express interests in arts education for their children; they want to enroll their children in P.S. 3 because of our arts education focus.
ETM advises us in strategic planning for School Development initiatives, fund-raising to support school programs and facility improvement in the community and with our local elected officials. Their efforts have led to recent lighting and audio/visual system upgrades for our auditorium. That, in turn, has allowed us to welcome a decades-old, NYC-based theater company, The Shadow Box Theatre, to establish a permanent residency at P.S. 3. They will also support our music and theater education.
Over the years I have urged my school leader colleagues to partner with Education Through Music. I heartily recommend this arts-in-education organization as one of the best in New York City.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
. . . promoting and sustaining music education for all students at P.S. 3/The Bedford Village School and the positive effect that it has had on our school community and student achievement.
If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...
. . . have them expand their work to parents and families in the school community for them to understand the relationship between music literacy and academic achievement and, hence, the importance of music education in student learning and addressing the needs of the "whole child" and varied learning modalities.
