Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat is honored to be a Capital City Go-Go (the NBA G-League affiliate of the Washington Wizards) partner for the 2023–2024 season. As a Go-Go partner, Teach the Beat is a featured host in the Capital City Go-Go’s Education Day Games on February 8 and March 5. Go-Go Education Day fuses a basketball game with the distinctive sound of go-go music. 

The D.C. Teaching for Black Lives study group, made up of 14 educators from Brent Elementary (ECE–5), meets once a month. According to Jon Berg, the study group’s coordinator, they started the group “to help educators reflect on their practice and to identify resources that center our Black students in our classrooms — with an emphasis on what is taught and how classrooms are set up to help students engage in civic life.”

Gearing up for the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action is no small feat. While educators in the D.C. area likely have already been uplifting BLM at School work with participation in the Year of Purpose, the Week of Action is often taken as an opportunity to engage in more and perhaps larger scale efforts to uplift the guiding principles and national demands…

Athena Kopsidas welcomed Teach the Beat back to Seaton ES in February for a series of visits that were part of the way Seaton was participating in the Black Lives Matter Week of Action this year. Matt “Swamp Guinee” Miller facilitated the two visits with students in the school cafeteria, leading students through interactive lessons on different percussive instruments used in go-go.

Children learned about the history and fundamentals of go-go and each child got a chance to play an improvised tune on Sweet Cherie’s bedazzled keyboard. They danced when they heard their name called by the talker, just like at a go-go.

During a middle school assembly, there wasn’t an empty seat in Washington International School’s theater — unless the students and teachers were up dancing to Sweet Cherie’s music! Cherie dove deep into the history of go-go, speaking to students about the different sub-genres and their many bands.

Teach the Beat joined DC Public Library and Capital City Go-Go in the basketball team’s “The Beat Keeps Going” game, held on November 15, 2022,  in celebration of #GoGoPreservationWeek. 

By Kimberly Ellis

As a native Washingtonian, Beth Sewell, an Independence and Learning Support teacher at Calvin Coolidge Senior High School (DCPS), has been surrounded by go-go music her entire life.

By Kimberly Ellis

On August 17, 2021, DC educators joined the virtual workshop “Think Local, Crank Global” hosted by Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat program and the DC Public School Office of Teaching and Learning, Music, and Arts.

By Lila Chafe

On Tuesday, August 17, DC educators joined the virtual workshop “Think Local, Crank Global” hosted by Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat program and the DC Public School Office of Teaching and Learning, Music, and Arts.

Join Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat and DC Public Schools Office of Teaching and Learning for a go-go professional development experience featuring The Uncle Devin Show®!

Spring 2021 allowed for the Teach the Beat program to visit 27 classrooms, serving approximately 550 students throughout D.C. public schools virtually and in-person with teaching artists navigating varying online platforms.

Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Teaching for Change can schedule artists for remote classroom visits.

On February 19, go-go became the official music of Washington, D.C.! This important legislation requires the mayor’s office to produce, fund, and implement programs that support the preservation and creation of go-go music — and the culture and history it represents. At Teaching for Change, we are honored to partner with D.C. area schools, musicians, and authors on our Teach the Beat project, which provides lessons and facilitates classroom visits.

Go-go artist “Sweet” Cherie Mitchell visited Langdon Elementary School in connection with Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat program. This is the second year that the program has been able to visit Langdon, a partner in Teaching for Change’s Tellin Stories parent engagement project. At the January parent-principal meeting, parents participated in an icebreaker where they were asked to consider: what does go-go music mean to you?

In “crews” of four to five, students each picked up an instrument from Ju Ju’s percussion section of cowbells and several types of drums. Then as a whole class, with drumsticks in each hand, Ju Ju taught the students to tap out a go-go “pocket beat” and a “bounce beat” that is popular among younger go-go performers and listeners.

Go-go musician Sweet Cherie, keyboardist and singer for the all-female Bela Dona Band, joined the music class at Anacostia HS as part of the 2020 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. A highlight of the visit was when Sweet Cherie led the room in Junkyard Band’s go-go classic, “Sardines.” One of the drummers joined her in the circle and midway through the song added a bounce beat to the rhythm.

William “Ju Ju” House led a class on the go-go pocket with second graders at Beers Elementary as part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action and the and the Teach the Beat project to bring go-go to D.C. classrooms.

Twelfth-grade students in Bill Stevens’s social studies class at IDEA Public Charter School spent months conducting in-depth research and preparing multi-modal presentations that unpacked and delved into important topics in D.C. history that often do not get highlighted in the school curriculum.

Students at Noyes Elementary School (DCPS) learned about go go during Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action with a Teach the Beat lesson from international go-go artist, William “Ju Ju” House on Tuesday, February 5.