October 27, 2010

Jowi Taylor, the founder of Six String Nation – a project designed to encourage people to tell the story of Canada in different ways while celebrating the country’s diversity and the power of music – brought his message of belonging to Silver Creek Public School in Georgetown recently.

In his presentation, Taylor uses a special guitar, dubbed Voyageur, to explain the message of togetherness.

Silver Creek Vice-principal Carolyn Lewis says Taylor’s vision of “creating a guitar that represents stories of Canada represented in Canadian artifacts exemplifies our vision of bringing children of different ages together in communities to share their stories and what it means to be Canadian.”

She says the school wanted to celebrate the diversity of its students and Taylor “showed us diversity is not always visible – the diversity lies in the stories behind the artifacts.” 

“We wanted a speaker who celebrates Canada in a unique way so that our community of parents and learners could appreciate how even the 'little' things can make a big difference in making something meaningful and memorable. We also wanted the kids to learn about the need to persevere, to believe in a dream and how to make it happen.  We wanted the students to see how Canadians are made up of so many different facets - different cultures, different accomplishments, and different dreams and goals.” 

Following Taylor’s presentation, students were able touch – and in some cases play – the guitar that has been handled by thousands of people over the years.

Lewis says Taylor’s visit fits a number of curriculum needs at Silver Creek including Design and Technology – creation and design of a guitar – Social Studies – research story behind the stories or artifacts and Canadian history and geography – and Music, through the study of the guitar, role of the guitar in Canadian history through present day plus the study of Canadian music.