INDIVIDUAL - SCAD ID - #170
Contact
susan@loydartists.com
518-647-5916
https://loydartists.com/roster/f/c/3834
Schoharie County, NY
Discipline
Geographical Availability
Reggie Harris, musician, storyteller and educator has been a vibrant force in musical, educational and historical circles for over 35 years. Steeped in the tradition of African American spirituals, folk, gospel, rock and the music of civil and human rights, Reggie’s writing, research, field work and recordings have amassed an amazing repertoire of African American music, blending spirituals and freedom songs and stories. Reggie has been affiliated with the Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program for over two decades, offering both multimedia performances for students and communities as well as an in-depth workshop for educators. As a founding artist in the Kennedy Center’s “Changing Education Through the Arts” program, Reggie is a committed teacher and advocate for lifelong learning. “My work has been focused on using music, primary sources, and educational narrative with respect to best practices of respecting how students learn. My relationship with the John F. Kennedy Center and in partnership with educators across the nation has provided me with opportunities to develop, test, and re-frame both materials and practices that produce positive opportunities for learning.”
There is nothing like the magic of being in a local school with students somewhere in America. My goal is to discover the way in together, using music and story in ways that are not only fun, but universally effective; to help students discover, engage and then demonstrate their learning, showing that the material has hit the mark, that the connection between past and present has become more than words on a page.
My programs use story and song to build community among students as the slaves did in their daily lives. By alternating the flow of the performances between monologue, student participation, and active listening, the lessons develop as an interactive sharing. Students will be encouraged to listen, respond and follow simple directions as they would in a community setting. These skills build their ability to communicate and collaborate while enhancing social awareness and relationship skills. Singing together creates a bond that allows information to flow back and forth as the conversation unfolds. Each student audience and situation is unique, and I work to find the right tempo and level of engagement in both age and context. In all of my programs, I strive to create an environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves. Each program concludes with a student talkback/Q&A that encourages the students to question the content and to ask for greater detail in addition to expressing their own thoughts and feelings. In the program “Music and the Underground Railroad” students learn about how the slaves communicated and conveyed information through code songs and how they collaborated and worked together among themselves and with other people outside of slavery to achieve freedom. Students will use critical thinking to interpret the meaning of code songs and to broadly think about and understand the differences in communication among different cultures and groups.
The group activities in my curriculum guides reinforce and help students to develop their thinking skills. For example, at the conclusion of my program “How Martin Climbed the Mountain” students are asked to discuss Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and to consider the difference between a dream and a goal. In other classroom activities, students collaborate and cooperate in groups to create a “Black History Wrap-up Rap” that requires critical thinking to sum up the program lesson, creativity to write an original rap and decision-making to assign roles and rehearse. They also learn to work together and listen to each other.