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The USC String Project is a teacher-training program for undergraduate string education majors, which employs a “service-learning” model. Some may refer to this kind of community-university training center as a “laboratory school.” In other words, the USC String Project is a program that offers pre-service teachers practical supervised training during their college years (by a Master Teacher and two graduate assistants), and students in the community the opportunity to learn stringed instruments at a reasonable cost. The undergraduate students start as assistants and eventually graduate to teaching classes on their own. String Project student teachers have the chance to exercise and improve their teaching skills while community students gain access to expanded cultural experiences and music lessons that may improve their self-growth, self-knowledge, enjoyment and, over time, self-esteem (Elliott, 1995). |
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| The USC String Project is part of the National String Project Consortium (NSPC), a coalition devoted to rectifying the “critical shortage of string teachers in the US” and to encouraging more students across the country to play stringed instruments. Since the genesis of the NSPC, over 7,000 school age children have received stringed instrument instruction, over 400 string music education students have been trained and over 200 new teachers have been added to the public schools. (NSPC, Progress to Date section, ¶ 1). The work this organization is doing is incredible. Students who would not otherwise have had access to instruments because of geography and socioeconomic status, now have the opportunity to participate in dynamic music-making. |  |
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