Facts about San Francisco Symphony’s Adventures in Music Program
♪ AIM is a sequential, curriculum-based music education program
designed for the public elementary schools of San Francisco in collaboration
with the San Francisco Unified School District. The San Francisco Symphony
presents AIM free-of-charge.
♪ Launched in 1988, AIM now serves every 1st through
5th grade student in each of the SFUSD’s elementary schools, plus 3rd, 4th and
5th grade students in a number of independent and parochial
schools.
♪ In the 2006-07 school year the AIM program reached a total of more
than 22,000 students and included more than 1,000 ensemble performances in the
public elementary schools of San Francisco.
♪ Each student receives a sequence of four in-school ensemble
presentations. Each musical presentation is the centerpiece of a
specially-designed curriculum unit that introduces and reinforces music concepts
while supporting curricular goals in areas such as the language arts, social
studies, physics, and the visual arts. The theme for 2007-08 is Sounds
of Music! which ties music to the curricular area of science, specifically
to sound production, and presents a very special opportunity to collaborate
again with San Francisco's premier science museum, the Exploratorium.
♪ A central component of AIM’s sequential curriculum is a
private concert at Davies Symphony Hall, performed by the San Francisco Symphony
and attended by the entire AIM population.
♪ The AIM curriculum is designed in alignment with curriculum
frameworks of the SFUSD, the California State Visual and Performing Arts Framework, and the
Goals 2000 National Music Standards, as well as the Frameworks and Standards for
other subjects targeted in a particular year’s curriculum.
♪ The AIM approach is a pluralistic one, celebrating the rich
diversity of cultures in the Bay Area and as represented in San
Francisco’s public school classrooms. The curriculum teaches about
music of many cultures.
♪ To assist each teacher in implementing the AIM curriculum, the AIM
Program includes a training/professional development component for teachers, a
student journal workbook for every child, and supplementary resources such as
instruments, books, videos, maps, and CDs, depending on the year’s
curricular needs.
AIM Fact Sheet, January 2008