Under the guidance of 22-year-old Toronto musician, teacher and entrepreneur Mitch Wong, students at De La Salle College, University of Toronto Schools and St. Clement’s School are learning how to jam.

Unlike traditional conservatory-based programs, which are based on composition and performance, Wong puts an emphasis on spontaneous collaboration, improvisation, and creative expression.

“Jamming is such a fun thing to do, it’s so easy to do,” Wong said. “Its just a matter of giving (students) a course, taking them by the hand and showing them how to do it, and then let them free – let them play!”

The three private school each ran distinct pilot versions of Wong’s Music As a Second Language class during the past academic year, allowing Wong to fine tune the program; he’s hoping to gauge the interest of larger, public school boards such as the TSDB.

The public board is no stranger to innovation. It currently boasts 19 alternative elementary schools and 22 alternative secondary schools, several of which have a focus on the arts.

UTS music teacher Ronald Royer said there’s “a real need” for more creativity in the music curriculum. He handed control of his music class over to Wong for one period a week during the spring term and said that there’s been a positive effect on each and every student’s performance.

But despite the promise, Royer notes that resources and funding for new pilot projects in the public sector are limited. “Getting them logistically to work it all out,” Royer said, “I think is the biggest hurdle.”

Offering the jamming classes to students in high school, Wong says, will hopefully inspire them to think the possibilities for making music differently.

“Jamming usually happens with a guitar, a bass, drums, maybe a piano…very rarely in that group will you see a saxophone player or a clarinet player.”

At De La Salle College, meanwhile, only three students were selected to take Wong’s program as an enrichment experience, and only two of them agreed to give it a shot.

Sixteen-year-olds Johnathan Chan and Alethea Song are already practising upwards of six-hours a week as part of their intensive musical regimes. Despite their rigorous training, they agree that the program offers them a new way experience music.

“Its different than just playing notes on a page,” Johnathan said.

Wong has also volunteered to teach the program on Saturday mornings at Regent Park School of Music but the school’s director, Richard Marsella, is hesitant to confirm the program will proceed.

The board of directors at RPMS has been unwilling to accept volunteer teaching staff, Marsella said, and is still finalizing the year’s budget.

“We value to work of our educators,” he said, “and we think it’s important to ensure a standard (by paying them.)…We work with volunteers in so many other ways, but we don’t encourage volunteer teaching.”

Marsella did say that he was thoroughly impressed by Wong’s program, and that “there’s a definite interest.”

In the meantime, Wong is planning to open a studio in midtown Toronto in September, where he can try out the teaching approach with members of the general public.

“This is the heart and soul of music,” he insists. “I would like to see this is wide spread as possible.”

To hear Mitch Wong’s thoughts on the program and the sound of a live lesson at De La Salle, listen to the audio clip below.

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In 2003, Dalton McGuinty pledged $300 million to child care. Three years later, the premier accepted a one-time payment from the federal government. Since then, the Ontario government has allotted $63.5 million to child-care funding every year.

Critics say the money Ontario received from the federal government will run out this June and that this means cuts to child-care subsidies. Andrea Calver, spokesperson for Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, says these cuts will hurt parents.

“The ripple effect of these cuts will lead to a catastrophic collapse for our fragile child care system and impact families, child care centres and staff and communities,” Calver said.

Calver said that over 7,000 child-care spaces could vanish along with 1,800 child-care jobs. She added that this will result in additional burden to an economy still emerging from a recession.

”While the province is facing a $24.7 billion deficit, cuts to the child-care sector will significantly affect our economy,” Calver said. “The Centre for Spatial Economics found that there would be a drop of $148.3 million in Ontario’s GDP through job losses and increased demand for welfare.”

Calver said that low-income neighbourhoods will suffer as a result of subsidy cuts.

Rosemary White, executive director of Bond Street Nursery School, agrees. Her school has served children and families living in the St. Jamestown and Regent Park area since 1937. White says that many of the parents who enroll their children at Bond Street Nursery School live below the low-income cutoff. She said cuts to subsidies will exclude the children in low-income families from child-care and put some facilities out of business.

“When our older children leave in August, we will not be able to admit new children because they will not be able to get a subsidy,” White said. “Of course we cannot exist with over half our children gone. We may very well have to close our doors.”

Torbinta Albert, a parent to three children, has waited since April 2009 for a subsidy so her youngest child can attend Bond Street Nursery School. She cannot afford child care otherwise. An immigrant from Sri Lanka, Albert would like to learn English to improve her life. Without the subsidy, she says would have to stay home during the day to take care of her three-year-old son.

“I would like to go to ESL classes, but I cannot go,” Albert said.

White said that the funding shortfall means the system will lose 5,000 spaces.

“The parents impacted are the ones who cannot get their children into the school. They are disappointed and some are confused as they do not understand how there can be funding one minute and then it is gone the next,” White said.

Laurel Broten, minister of Child and Youth Services, said the federal government needs to act quickly to resolve this situation.

“Ontario parents will see an erosion of child-care services if the federal government doesn’t step up and get back in the child care business,” Broten said.

But Sylivia Jones, Conservative critic of Child and Youth Services and MPP for Dufferin-Caledon, disagreed. She thinks that the Ontario should not seek help from the federal government.

“The province should concentrate on managing their provincial program,” Jones said.

Jones also thinks that the introduction of full-day kindergarten may be illtiming by the Liberal government.

“The McGuinty Liberals have chosen to unveil their costly all-day kindergarten program, while organizations with programs already in place are looking for support,” Jones said.