Joe Crone

Joe Crone is a singer, songwriter, dramatist and educator. His evenings are spent sharing his songs with friends at pubs, coffeehouses and festivals. In the day, he spends his time with his company, "Educationa live", visiting schools for workshops and performing in concerts. When he is not busy doing this, he works with The Royal Conservatory of Music and their "Learning Through the Arts" program. As an artist with this program, Joe works with both teachers and their students, and designs and implements lessons that incorporate the arts into many curriculum areas. He has also developed "The Complete Phonics Program", a music and games based phonics program that has met with much success in helping students master the complexities of the English language. See: www.completephonics.com for more details.

Starting in 1989, he has taught music and drama to students from kindergarten through to grade 12, and has been a classroom teacher for children from the 4th to 8th grades. He has taught in the York Region District School Board in Ontario for 12 years and recently on the island of Saipan for 3 years. He is also a regular teacher at the York Region District School Board's Arts Camp, teaching songwriting to students from grade 7 to grade 12. He has specialist certification in dramatic arts from the Ontario Ministry of Education and has recorded 4 CDs of original music for children that focus on curriculum concepts and character education themes. "On the Island" is a collection of his songs for the adult listener. As a teacher and an artist, Joe believes that learning should be a joyful and exciting adventure and should reflect the various learning styles of his students. For this reason, he integrates the arts as much as possible while working with children. And to help parents and teachers do the same, his children's CDs have booklets with all the guitar chords and words to his songs. The CD Geometry Park even has a teacher's guide with step by step instructions about how to integrate the arts into many subject areas.Teaching through music, art and drama creates learning experiences that students will simply never forget!

Joe's desire to learn about the world has led him to travels in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji and the island of Saipan. These extensive travels in Asia and the Pacific focused on independent cultural studies including the studying of Tai Chi, Yoga, and Asian religious traditions. Development education was also a focus of these travels and included volunteering at Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying Destitute in Varanasi, India, and creating a craft importing business in order to fund a literacy project for women in the rural Kathmandu valley. His time in Fiji was spent with Canadian Crossroads International working for the department of agriculture and at a sheltered workshop for developmentally challenged adults. Joe's latest overseas adventure was on the island of Saipan where he taught at Whispering Palms School for 3 years and was known as "Uncle Joe" to his students in grades 4, 5 and 6. At the bottom of this bio is an article that appeared in "Professionally Speaking", the magazine of the Ontario College of Teachers.

Prior to teaching Joe worked at group homes for developmentally challenged adults and for troubled youth. He has also worked at summer camps for developmentally challenged adults, youth and children, camps for physically challenged adults, and with Native children from the Moose Factory and Moosonee area in Northern Ontario.