boxed guitars

Yesterday was my third day at the job--one that was more musically inclined perhaps. While setting up the tables with pre-made Smuckers packages of peanut butter and jelly and pre-made grilled chesse sandwiches for snack time (I wonder if snack time takes into account food allergies), I decided to voice my opinion about the need for art and music education to two of my co-workers, and they passively agreed with the usual "yeah" and nod of the head. During recess break, I decided to browse through the grey-colored 'Enrichment' cabinets in the storage room to discover fifteen or so child-sized guitars in boxes, practically brand-shining-new. Thinking that these guitars would be more beneficial in the hands of kids that were throwing basketballs against a red brick wall for lack of a basketball court, I took one out to the playground to test the waters.

Not sooner than ten seconds after setting foot on the pavement outside did a crowd of children amass around me with lit-up eyes and hands reaching out asking me if I could play. Unfortunately, I have yet to develop guitar playing skills, so instead showed them how to hold the instrument and passed it off to one of the kids, with the idea that the kids would share among themselves this strange new object. However, their 'thirst' to have a try at the guitar was left unsatisfied so I headed back into the storage room to get two more. 'Pick-the-number I had in my head' was the way I initially decided to distribute these instruments, but with 15 kids shouting different numbers, and with the kids all somehow claiming to have picked the same exact number I later announced to have in mind even though I didn't hear as such, I opted to hand the guitars to the most quiet children.

After recess, I went over to the one-room library to wait around for children in need of tutoring to show up. Not having anything to do while other than waiting, I decided to take a look through a janitor collection bin next to the door. To my surprise, two boom box CD players were in this bin marked as broken. Thinking that perhaps they were still functional, I brought them into the library, cleaned them off, plugged them in, and loaded in my Beatles and Gorillaz Cd's. And yes, they still worked.

After jamming to Last Living Souls, Strawberry Fields and other tunes for twenty minutes or so, I ended up tutoring two kindergarten kids and another kid who the program staff termed as very special. It seems to be the case that this kid is perhaps autistic and learns through the memorization of answers, rather than fully understanding the concepts behind simple addition problems and spelling. I experimented with various methods including finger counting but that didn't work so well with numbers past ten, and the five-line tally which somehow produced nine-line tallies. On the brighter side, this kid expressed interest in the guitars I brought out during recess. Perhaps I will locate some students at my campus who are talented in instrument playing to come one day and play and teach songs to these kids.