Teach Tech Through Music

We will help teachers educate children about technology and technology careers through music. The curriculum will be developed by professionals and executives in the technology industry in coordination with Guitars in the Classroom, a highly effective nonprofit that serves over half-a-million students in public elementary schools.

If we are going to change our youth’s career trajectories, we need to plant that seed early, reach them where they already are, and leave a sustaining impression. Two of the most significant things we can do to drive this are to inspire teachers to enthusiastically participate and to use music to communicate our message.

With guidance from Guitars in the Classroom, we would like to create a toolkit for the employees of technology companies to write songs about technology and technology careers. Guitars in the Classroom can then share these materials with participating teachers, most of whom are at title I schools. Each set of songs will be supplemented by an additional message to the teachers that clarifies why these concepts are important and lists additional online resources for interested students.

By involving leaders throughout the tech industry, we can ensure that the information shared will point children toward the careers of the future, we can inspire the leaders to financially support the program, and we can link the technology workforce with the children in their communities. Companies across the technology spectrum would be targeted as part of this program, including aerospace, biotechnology, software, digital systems, nanotechnology, mechanical engineering, physics and robotics.

For example, using the toolkit, musical Atlassian employees could write songs that explain what software is, how software works with hardware, the people who create it, and how they build it. They could then translate the songs into other languages and provide the teachers with a little bit of background information and links to resources for children who are interested in learning more (e.g. freecodecamp.org). Atlassian would then fund the overhead involved in distributing the curriculum to participating schools, as well as, additional funding to ensure the schools near its offices are able to participate.

We believe in a future where a child is just as likely to say she wants to grow up to be a software engineer as a doctor.

Most elementary school teachers, especially in low-income areas, do not have the knowledge and resources to teach about technology in a way that will spark the interest and enthusiasm in disadvantaged children. Guitars in the Classroom’s model allows us to reach hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged children across culture, language, location and socioeconomic status. If scaled, this program could have a marked influence on both the diversity and preparedness of our workforce.

Guitars in the Classroom has developed the perfect model for empowering those who have dedicated their lives to our children, giving them the tools to engage every single child in her class. Participating students with any learning style are able to learn and remember concepts more easily. They are also building positive relationships with their teachers and building confidence in themselves.

There is possibly no better way to imprint on our children—or their teachers—that technology and technology careers are accessible.

We want to spark the interest and enthusiasm in disadvantaged children about technology and technology careers. We will deploy it through Guitars in the Classroom. 

Our short-term impact would be that children would feel technology careers are more interesting and accessible. Our mid-term impact would be that a more diverse group of children would pursue technology classes. Our long-term impact would be a more diverse technology workforce.

Gate the content so that teachers need to provide #-of-children-reached data when they download the curriculum - One million children are exposed to these songs

Count clicks on the additional resources for students who are interested in learning more - 10,000 children are interested in learning more about technology on their own

Survey the high schools that the elementary schools feed into and monitor trends in technology and science class enrollment - Double the enrollment in technology and science classes as participating students enter high school

Our solution transcends culture, language, socio-economic backgrounds of the teachers, children, locations and is fun and proven to be effective. It is also easily scaleable as Guitars in the Classroom (who has worked out all of the kinks over the past 19 years) has a proven method for all of the logistics involved.

It’s all about empowering teachers and striking a chord with the kids to get them excited to learn about technology. It also allows tech companies to bridge the gap with disadvantaged children.

Companies can submit their songs to Guitars in the Classroom who will ensure that the submissions meet their criteria and will then make them available to participating schools. Large corporate sponsorships can then help Guitars in the Classroom expand. 

We want to grow this program to a state where Guitars in the Classroom can ship it fully funded and scale. 

Guitars in the Classroom cannot do this alone. Members of the technology industry would need to actively participate and contribute all of the funds necessary to operate the additional program.

http://www.guitarsintheclassroom.org/learn-about-us/articles-about-gitc/

I've known the work of Guitars in the Classroom for many years and immediately thought of them when I learned about this program. I'm not sure there's a more seamless way to give disadvantaged youth the skills they need to prepare for the workforce of the future and thrive in the 21st century.

My team came up with this idea at Atlassian's solve-a-thon last week, and we are hoping Atlassian will be the program's first partner.

github, slack, freshdesk, rally, asana, etc.