Monday July 20th 2009 Summer class, the first day

Yesterday was an exceptional day as the class was full of energy and excitment. Excitement that becomes energy in my teaching style. I love to teach, I have a serious passion for teaching kids of all ages how to do something. In this case how to play African hand-drums namely djembes. The class costs fifteen dollars which I then reinvest in the class by purchasing a new drum to allow more students to join. I have been teaching hand-druming for the past three years now. I teach nearly sixty students regularly between our three public elementary schools and one private school. Their age groups are between nine and twelve. However this summer class is only for students who have gone and purchased their own drum. I am not techniquly permitted to use the elementary school drums outside of the classroom.

Within the druming class I teach traditional West African songs, how to play different parts together and for the first time how to read box notation as it relates to African rhythms. As part of a new way to open the class I have a large number of "demotivational" posters and yesterday being the first day I took a new poster in. My poster has a picture of a Lepord laying on a branch, underneath it says INDIFFERENCE: it only takes 43 muscles to frown 17 to smile and none to just sit there with a dumb look on your face. Needless to say my students loved it. You can find this poster and more at,

http://www.despair.com/indifference.html

Try it out and tell me what you think!!

Chris...