G-Funk carries his
ukulele with him everywhere. As I walk up the hall to his 7th grade Career and
Technical Education (CTE) classroom, I hear him playing. I hear him again as he
leaves the school after the carpentry club ends. G-Funk (“Grant” to his
teachers) and 200 of his middle school classmates built cigar box guitars over
the past two years, during and after school. Grant’s guitar ranks among the
best built and best sounding.
Using Building To Teach materials and methods, the Cigar Box Guitar Project started in one school as a way to teach 20 students “hands-on math.” It has ended up serving over 200 students from all the middle schools in Alexandria, Virginia. CTE teachers now coordinate with math teachers; students, teachers and parents gather for school district-wide “gut bucket” blues concerts; the students are engaged in their projects; and, they’re measurably improving their math skills.
Download the Building To Teach Cigar Box Guitar Math Instructor and Building Guide
Using Building To Teach materials and methods, the Cigar Box Guitar Project started in one school as a way to teach 20 students “hands-on math.” It has ended up serving over 200 students from all the middle schools in Alexandria, Virginia. CTE teachers now coordinate with math teachers; students, teachers and parents gather for school district-wide “gut bucket” blues concerts; the students are engaged in their projects; and, they’re measurably improving their math skills.
Download the Building To Teach Cigar Box Guitar Math Instructor and Building Guide
A small city inside
Washington DC’s beltway, Alexandria, Virginia’s public schools have a diverse
student population which brings tremendous challenges, opportunities and
rewards. I’m a wooden boat builder and carpenter by trade and have become a
hands-on math instructor. My own kids have led me to guitar building. (They
like musical instruments better than boats...) With the on-line inspiration of
Keni Lee Burgess, I’ve even started playing a little bottleneck slide. http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profile/KeniLeeBurgess
None of this work
happens without good partners. Alexandria has two of the most flexible and open
minded middle school CTE teachers you will ever meet in Matt Cupples and Kyle
Godfrey. They’ve allowed us to come into their classrooms and work with their
students. They’ve also made our work much, much better.
Curtis Blues (http://www.curtisblues.com/)
is a local blues musician/ historian who’s crazier than any middle school
student I’ve met. Who else could take a class of kids who have never played a
lick and get them to perform a concert, on stage, in front of their peers?
Affection for cigar box
guitars is not isolated to Virginia. After taking a CBG building workshop with
me at a ‘Teaching with Small Boats” conference,
Chris de Firmian has the kids of Ukiah, California building and playing.
He’s not alone. Google “Cigar Box Guitar” and you’ll get over a million
hits. We want to continue to spread the fun. You can download the Cigar Box
Guitar Math Instructor’s Guide. The related hands on math instructional
materials and exercises are available through Building To Teach, also free of
charge.
We get to do this work
through the context of teaching math skills. Kids learn symmetry, measurement,
fractions, basic geometry, even Algebra through building the guitar and laying
out its fret scale. The math achievement is easily measurable; but what’s
really great about this work is watching the student use what they build and
change their expectations about what they can achieve.
Every Thursday afternoon
G-Funk and his mates meet in Kyle Godfrey’s (CTE) classroom. They are now
building electric guitars, working in hundredths of inches, learning to select
the correct piece of wood for their fretboard and doing all the wiring. Best of
all, I get to help.