Word: violins
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...Africa, teaching English and conducting the girls' choir, before joining TIME International in 1995. Now a staff writer at TIME, she tells a story this week about a music teacher in New York City who works with underprivileged children, selected by lottery, at public schools. Labi used to study violin, but says her "fingers could never quite master the vibrato." She became a journalistic prodigy instead, mastering subjects ranging from grief counseling to the Tae-Bo phenomenon. But Labi, who sang soprano in choir as an undergraduate at Harvard, has not given up on music. "The kids at the school...
...class stands at attention, violins tucked under crooked arms and bows dangling from right index fingers. Roberta, as her students call her, holds their gaze for a moment before abruptly extending the violin out and then up to her chin in a command gesture. The kids obey. "O.K., here...
Today, as always, their eyes are on Roberta. She has earned their attention, this 51-year-old Italian American who ventured into Harlem in 1980, bringing along two sons and 50 violins. The tiny instruments were a settlement of sorts--bought for $5,000 to teach kids in Greece, where she was stationed as a military wife, and kept when her marriage ended and she returned to the U.S. The daughter of a factory worker, she had taken up violin in fourth grade at her public school. "It should be an inalienable right for every child to have music education...
...They wrote my name on a piece of paper, put it in a big bucket and picked me out of it," explains Chantaneice Kitt, 8, who has been in the violin program for two years. The lottery is Roberta's way of asserting that music is for all children, not just the gifted or privileged. Her students--and her vocal cords--sometimes pay the price for her passion. "She gets on your case and stuff," says Toussaint Stackhouse, 9, "but I like her the way she is. When we need help, she helps...
...first impressions of Harvard were less than favorable. I was welcomed by oppressive humidity as I lugged two heavy suitcases, a laptop, and a violin up four flights of stairs to the top floor of Hollis South (I do not travel lightly). I realized two things then. One: everyone else but me and one international student had parents there, helping them move in and get settled, and two: UPS had lost the ten boxes I had sent from home. Needless to say, I was not happy that first night. I had never felt so alone...