Music

My name is Mike McLean and I have the great pleasure of being the itinerant general music teacher here at Quincy Jones Elementary School. The students at Quincy Jones School have been an inspiration to me, and I look forward to everyday that I have the opportunity to be here. I have been teaching music for the Los Angeles Unified School District for twenty four years after earning my California Teaching Credential from Cal State Dominguez Hills. I graduated from Eastern Illinois University majoring in Music Education with an emphasis in percussion.

Quincy Jones Elementary School is proud to integrate drumming instruction into our teaching and learning curriculum with African hand drums, or doumbeks. During the first year Quincy Jones Elementary School opened in 2010, we received a class set of doumbeks thanks to a generous grant and all staff and faculty were trained at Remo Recreational Music Center through UCLA's Beat the Odds program on how to facilitate drumming lessons. It provides a unique, exciting facet of instruction to teach a myriad of essential skills such as phonemic awareness, rhythm, active listening and building community through teamwork. The most wonderful aspect of African drumming in our school is while it supports academic learning, it simultaneously relieves stress and anxiety in our students because hand drumming activates production of endorphins.