Creating Learning Community Awards 2012

Pamela Reit receives a Creating Learning Community award: “The Heart and Soul of Green Mountain Suzuki”

The Suzuki Association of the Americas presented the 2012 Creating Learning Community Awards on Saturday, May 26, during a ceremony at the SAA 15th Biennial Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Recipients were Pamela Reit: “The Heart and Soul of Green Mountain Suzuki” and Winifred Crock, William Dick, and Dr. Laurie Scott: “Suzuki in the Schools: A Celebration of Environment.”

The Creating Learning Community awards celebrate significant contributions by those who have worked for the development and expansion of the Suzuki learning community in the Americas or internationally, or who have helped to preserve the Suzuki legacy. Areas of activity that might result in a nomination can include teachers, parents, or students supporting other teachers, parents, and/or students, international service, community outreach, and significant and sustained volunteer work for the SAA or other ISA member associations. Contributions by recipients show evidence that they are primarily motivated by the welfare of the Suzuki community, not the individual’s personal recognition or gain. The awards are presented biennially at SAA conferences.

Pamela Reit, a Suzuki violin teacher since 1986, founded Vermont Suzuki Violins in her native northwest Vermont in 1993. The organization has grown from Pam’s single studio to a nonprofit Suzuki education organization with a faculty of seven teachers and 60 students ages 4¬–18 that hosts group classes, a chamber music program, community concerts, workshops, and retreats. Prior to Pam’s founding of VSV, northwest Vermont did not have a large Suzuki program or community. Pam’s work with VSV led to the founding of Green Mountain Suzuki Institute, now in its eighth year. She is known for her effusive passion for teaching children and love and gratitude for all points of the Suzuki triangle. Nominators praised Pam’s enthusiasm, writing, “She champions Dr. Suzuki’s philosophies, especially that talent can be developed in any child… She is an inspiration to her students, parents and Suzuki colleagues through her teaching, directing and wonderful personality.”

A graduate of Peabody Conservatory and Rice University, Pam also performs with the Burlington Chamber Orchestra.

Laurie Scott and Winnifred Crock receive a Creating Learning Community award: “Suzuki in the Schools: A Celebration of Environment” (William Dick not pictured).

Winifred Crock, William Dick, and Dr. Laurie Scott are pioneers of the Suzuki in the Schools movement, which brings Suzuki education principles to classroom string programs. Over thirty years, they developed the guidelines for Suzuki in the Schools teacher trainers and curricula for Suzuki in the Schools teacher training programs and published a volume of music for Suzuki in the Schools programs, an endeavor led by Ms. Crock. Three highly-regarded teachers in their own right, together, they have built and nurtured the Suzuki in the Schools teaching community with energy and determination. All three have written extensively for the American Suzuki Journal, presented sessions at SAA biennial conferences and mentored numerous emerging Suzuki in the Schools programs. “The collaboration of these three outstanding pedagogues has been a determining factor in the expansion and inclusion of Suzuki principles in string classrooms in this country and indeed, around the world,” wrote nominators. “Their many accomplishments in this regard are a result of their unity of vision, a single-minded devotion to the wellbeing of children, and a commitment to bringing the teaching of Suzuki to the many children whose circumstances do not afford them opportunities to receive private instruction in music.”

Winifred Crock is director of orchestras at Parkway Central High School in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, and holds degrees from SIU Edwardsville and Kent State University in Ohio. For several SAA conferences, Winifred coordinated the Suzuki in the Schools sessions, and in 2008 she conducted the Suzuki Youth Orchestra of the Americas.

William Dick is an SAA Registered Teacher Trainer for Suzuki in the Schools and a former Suzuki institute director. He has been lauded as an educator by the American String Teachers Association, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Sony Corporation, and the National Coalition for Music Education. Laurie Scott is associate professor of music and human learning at The University of Texas at Austin. She holds degrees from the University of Texas, the University of Nebraska, and State University of New York at Fredonia.