Grants Enable Music Teacher at Speas Elementary School to Offer "Hooked on Strings" Class This Coming Year

Roger Bowen

Roger Bowen, who teaches music at Speas Elementary School, has been awarded a 2015-2016 Ecolab Vision for Learning Grant for $3,000.

He also has received a 2015 Teacher Grant for  $1,500 from the Winston-Salem Foundation.

The Ecolab grant will enable Bowen to start a new program at Speas this coming school year. Called "Hooked on Strings," it will introduce fourth-graders to playing the violin and studying music in a more creative and challenging way.

They will have lessons one day per week for 30 minutes. They will prepare recitals to share with family and fellow students. Parents will be involved in the program as they will have to make sure that the students are practicing at home so that they can progress in class, and be their best.

The program will provide a foundation for joining the orchestra or band in middle school.

The Winston-Salem Foundation grant will enable Bowen to study at Appalachian State University this summer. He will be taking the Level 1 Course for the Orff-Schulwerk method of teaching.

It is a child-centered approach that combines speech, movement, singing and playing recorders and other instruments as part of a creative atmosphere in which students are engaged in the music-making process.

The Ecolab company describes itself as is “an American global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets."

The Ecolabs grant program for school educators (teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators and other licensed staff) was created “to encourage and reward individual educators’ creativity and innovation in classroom learning by providing opportunities that will motivate and challenge students intellectually, raise student achievement, as well as increase their understanding of academic content and the connection between school and life.”