You Do
“A Real School of Rock”, Time Magazine
One teacher helps turn students into rock musicians.
It is 7:30 a.m. at a public school in Newark, New Jersey. The school day has not even started, but the kids are noisy. Students, ages 11 to 17, are there before school to jam on guitars and crank out tunes. They want to play like rock stars. This may sound like the movie School of Rock. However, it is not! It’s real life.
In 1996, David Wish started a group called Little Kids Rock. Wish is a teacher who also plays jazz guitar. He takes Little Kids Rock to different schools. Many kids in the United States do not learn about music in their schools because the schools do not have enough money for music classes. Wish did not want kids to miss out on the fun of music, so he started Little Kids Rock with instruments he borrowed from friends.
Wish’s kids learn to play by ear, not by reading music. He also shows students how to rock out like stars on a stage. They soon start playing and writing songs on their own. “We teach kids to play the kinds of music they listen to,” he explains. Now, about 2,000 kids are playing music in their classrooms. Wish plans to open classes in even more cities.
Little Kids Rock recorded its own songs on the group’s fourth CD. The musical styles range from rap to folk rock. We can all be rock stars, says Wish, if we “find a fun way to put our thoughts and feelings into words and are proud of what we do.” Wish’s kids pick up a love of music from making their own music. But real-life Little Kids Rock is different from the group in School of Rock. “In the movie, it’s one teacher and one class full of well-to-do kids,” Wish says. “In real life, it’s hundreds of teachers, thousand of kids, and it’s free.” Rock on!
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