Foundations of Music Inc. Research Project

It's been quite some time since I have posted about The Brainiac Project since my annual Brainiac Bash but it has been with good reason. I have been working really, really hard completing the first year of my doctoral program and I have been strategizing how to leverage my time at northwestern university to pursue research and community arts partnerships that will continue to push forward the TBP mission and vision to promote the power of music creation among urban youth.

Currently, I am working on a project in conjunction with Foundations of Music Inc. To assist and evaluate their songwriting and music production curriculum that is being piloted in cps schools.
In recent years, many CPS school districts have recognized the importance of providing arts education in their curriculum to promote stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning for urban youth.

Research indicates that culturally competent digital learning experiences in combination with arts experiences help black youth to better formulate future professional goals recent research also suggests that interventions that utilizes hip-hop culture coping promotes connections to the local community provides the most protective classroom setting.
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The Foundations of Music’s curriculum addresses this research by fostering culturally relevant arts programming for African American youth. It is my thought that our youth utilize hip hop music to absorb racial stereotypes and redefine themselves and their community in more positive terms. I really look forward to this project and think it could be groundbreaking for changing the way cps views digital music creation in the classroom setting.
I will keep you all posted on how it develops as i begin the project this spring.