10 Scholarship Winners Named for Capitol Community

The Capitol Community Fund, a joint project between HeadCount and The Capitol Theatre, is sending 10 rockin' teachers to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum - triple the number from last year!

The educators will receive special curriculum training on how to keep rock in the classroom, with an emphasis on activism and music's role as an agent of change.

Proceeds for these teacher scholarships are raised by auctioning off the Presidential Box for most upcoming shows at The Capitol Theatre - meaning auction winners rock at The Cap and give teachers the chance to rock in Cleveland!

The 2014 scholarship winners are:

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Mary Barresi, Shrub Oak, NY
Mary Barresi is an art teacher for grades nine through twelve at Lakeland High School in the Lakeland Central School District located in Shrub Oak, NY. Specifically, she teaches drawing, digital art, studio art, and cinematography. Music is just as relevant an art in her classroom: she has “DJ Fridays,” during which her students get to play songs to share during class, and she is planning a 1960s music-themed curriculum for the upcoming year to teach social and cultural activism. She is excited to apply what she learns at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Summer Teacher Institute this summer to her “Can Art Create Social Change” curriculum by adding rock artists to her existing lessons on Michelangelo and Van Gogh.

Martin Gilbert, Armonk, NY
Martin Gilbert hails from the Byram Hills Central School District, where he teaches US History, Global History, and Economics for grades nine through twelve at Byram Hills High School. He hopes to make history relevant using rock, for he believes that rock and history intertwine, influencing each other equally. Needless to say, he sees the Summer Teacher Institute at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an opportunity to teach his students to think differently about history and where we find it.

Naomi Gilbert, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Naomi Gilbert teaches art for grades nine through twelve at Hastings High School in the Hastings on Hudson Union Free School District. She takes a holistic approach to her teaching, open to various instruction methods in the classroom and eager to bring in other departments in the school. She wants to bring her students closer to the material at hand by using rock and roll as a connection between art and the issues about which students are passionate.

Brian McClintock, Mount Pleasant, NY
Brian McClintock is a Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Statistics teacher for grades eleven and twelve at Westlake High School in the Mount Pleasant Central School District. His mission as a teacher is to make math relevant to everybody, not just researchers and statisticians. Therefore, he wants to help his students understand that “math is everywhere,” just like music. He hopes that music, in its universality, will pique his students’ interest when used in a math lesson.

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Tiffany Morris, Mount Vernon, NY
Tiffany Morris is a fifth grade teacher at the Traphagen Elementary School in the Mount Vernon City School District. She believes music has a power to connect people to one another. She hopes that the Summer Teacher Institute will help with her goal of getting students to grasp the hardships of other Americans, given the role music has had throughout history.

Suzanne N. Mosca, Chappaqua, NY
Suzanne Mosca is a US History and Contemporary Issues teacher for grades eleven and twelve at the Horace Greeley High School in the Chappaqua Central School District. She already uses music in her curriculum for US History. For example, she is passionate about instilling the responsibility in her students to be active in our democracy and uses the idea of free expression in rock and roll to show them how these values apply in our culture. But she calls herself “woefully uninformed” about certain musical eras and the political climate surrounding them, so she wants to enhance her own knowledge this summer at the Teacher Institute in order to give her students a better understanding of the subject matter. She is excited to address protest, technology, and race relations using what she learns at the Institute.

Richard Salerno, New Rochelle, NY
Richard Salerno teaches US History and Government, Twentieth Century United States History and Government/Economics, AP US History, AP Government, Global Studies and World History for grades ten through twelve at the private Catholic Iona Preparatory Upper School. He grounds his teaching in the idea that experience is the best way to learn, for teachers and students alike. He plans to couple his firsthand experience of music in the fifties and sixties with what he learns at the Summer Teacher Institute to give more depth to his knowledge of those decades.

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Stan Serafin, Chappaqua, NY
Stan Serafin is a General Music and Chorus teacher for grades five through eight at the Seven Bridges Middle School in the Chappaqua Central School District. His teaching focuses on the relationship between music and society and how they influence each other. The Teacher Institute will help him with this task, and he hopes that his students will be able to take what they learn in his class to other disciplines.

Marshall Toppo, Rye, NY
Marshall Toppo is a Vocal and Instrumental Music teacher for grades four and five at the Osborn Elementary School in the Rye City School District. He has been excited to discover that elementary school students love rock and roll. He believes this is important especially because the kids are at an age from which they can develop their passion for rock. He helps this exposure along with the posters and artwork with which he decorates his classroom and hopes that the Summer Teacher Institute will sharpen his knowledge of the history of the rock and roll age.

Linda Ventura, Port Chester, NY
Linda Ventura teaches Vocal Music, Music Theory, Music Production, AP Music Theory, and IB Music Standard Level and Higher Level for grades nine through twelve at Port Chester High School in the Port Chester Union Free School District. Linda has “lived through” the rock and roll era and is a musician herself, so music is embedded into her life. She has been incorporating rock into her curriculum through workshops and is a strong believer in both the technical and social wonders of music. She is excited to be attending the Rock and Summer Teacher Institute because it will afford her the ability to further appreciate the music and its history and then allow her to give more back to her students.