Makayla's Proposal

Age Group/Population Defined: 7th and 8th grade woodwind players at New Center Middle School in Sevierville, Tennessee.

For my service-learning project, I would like to provide individualized lessons for the gifted woodwind players in grades 7 and 8 at the middle school I attended, New Center Elementary. I would like to learn more about this group because I was once part of it. I want to know if these students would appreciate and benefit from personalized lessons like their peers that are receiving it because they need extra help. At this school, students who are in band that are performing at a lower than desired level, receive free private lessons with a local band director. However, the students who are gifted and performing far beyond their grade level, are receiving no extra attention unless they can afford to seek lessons individually. This area, though a popular tourist destination, is populated with less than fortunate people. Therefore, most of these students cannot afford to pay for lessons. These students who excel in music are often not challenged with what is being taught because it is far too easy for them. Because of this, the band director has experienced a handful of students drop the course, and those students were the ones excelling (This concept has been proven through several surveys done by the current director). By creating individualized lessons, I will be able to help each student improve their weak spots, and challenge them with more advanced music outside of the classroom.  I believe that by pursuing this project, I will be able to expand my teacher toolbox and create appropriate challenges for these students that will encourage them to stay in band and pursue later into high school and possibly even college. This will benefit me by allowing me to create individualized lessons for a variety of instruments and skill sets. I believe this is relevant to the course because I will be focusing on a population that is often set aside because teachers do not feel they need help. To do so, I will focus on 3 main musical challenges: scales, memorization, and more advanced rhythmical aspects.

To conduct this project, I bring my prior skills of teaching this age group on a larger scale as well as my 14 years of experience as a woodwind player and 5 years of experience as a woodwind major. Though I have not had my own classroom yet, I spent my year of student teaching with 6th through 12th grade woodwind classes and I have been teaching flute lessons both virtually and in person for 6 years and believe that I will be able to better my teaching methods and positively impact these students.

Experts:

1.  Erin Bray: Woodwind teacher at Karns Middle School (Professional Clarinet)

2.  Dr. Russel Ramsey: Former head director at Sevier County High School/Middle School and New Center Middle (Professions Saxophone and Flute)

3.  Dr. Tara Scruggs: Woodwind instructor at Carson-Newman University (Professional Oboe and Clarinet)

4.  Peter Simpson: Bassoon instructor at the University of Kentucky

5.  Pat Bivens: Director of Bands at Carson-Newman University

6.  Liz Reams: Director at Ridge Middle school (Professional Flute)

7.  Chrisopher Justice: Director at Bearden Middle and Elementary (Professional Clarinet

8.  Liz Brogan (Director at Bearden Elementary (Professional Clarinet)

9.  Ebonee Thompson: Professional Flute player and my former high school private lessons teacher

10.  Emiley Wilson: Director at Piedmont Elementary (Professional Percussionist)