2021 September🍁

Hey everyone! Long time no see:)

It’s the start of a new school year, meaning that it’s a new start for SSI as well!

Our club has changed and grown a lot this year. First of all, we have a lot more people who has joined us this year. We have 8 student teachers in total and 2 translators. Our training schedule also changed slightly due to a change in our school schedule. Now, we only have 35 minutes of class every week, so we had to tweak our lessons plan a bit. In terms of the marketing team, we have grown tremendously. Not only do we have 15 members in total, but we also have one more team called the “fundraising team”, which is responsible for planning and holding fundraisers for SSI.

Let’s get into the details now!

Progress on training team:

This year, we are teaching a total of 13 children, and 2 of them are new. In our first lesson, we introduced ourselves to the students and reviewed and quizzed them about the things we worked on last year, including playing open strings, C major scale, and fingering. Then, we taught the new kids separately; they worked on playing open strings, taking the instrument out of the case, and straightening their posture.

In our second lesson, the old kids reviewed the C major scale and learned how to play about one line of Petite Tango, which is a song that they started working on last year. We also taught them how to play twinkle twinkle little star. Meanwhile, the new kids started to play open strings.

The first day was much more organized than last year. Even though we were given less time than last year, we used our time efficiently. The experienced teachers were the ones who mainly taught so that the new teachers could watch and learn how to approach kids, treat kids, and teach concepts to them. While teaching, we realized how helpful the musical concepts that were taught last year were, as the kids could learn the actual playing of the instrument faster. They were able to start with playing music pieces right away and were able to see the concepts being used in musical pieces. Also, we were glad to find the kids more open and comfortable around us; they smiled, talked, and laughed more often.

One of the challenges that we are trying to overcome is having a more organized ending. Instead of ending the lesson abruptly, we are trying to summarize what we taught before leaving so that they would be able to remember what they learned better. We’re also trying to find a way to get instruments fixed as quickly as possible. Whenever their instruments were broken, they had to share them with other kids.

Progress on marketing team:

People who were interested in joining the marketing team were assigned their positions. There are three main roles: fundraising team, blogger, and press team. The first article was posted and will be posted monthly like the blogs. Meanwhile, the fundraising team drafted their proposal for their first fundraiser; there will be two every semester. We are also planning to let the press team make videos promoting SSI this year and share them through the school newsletter. Lastly, we are planning to make our Instagram be more active this year. You can visit it to check out photos of us teaching the kids!

That is it for today:)

We hope you come check on how SSI is doing on a monthly basis and follow us through our meaningful journey!