Tim Griffin IF

(From www.GriffinEd.org - Ed.)

Tim Griffin taught grades K-5 in the Los Angeles Unified School District for eighteen years, eventually specializing in science and math, while writing and performing fun educational music on the side. Tim found that the visual and performing arts, especially music, are among the most powerful tools we have for helping kids with motivation, retention, and comprehension of all subjects. Over the years, the music grew into a second full-time job.

By the time Tim had released his second solo album, other teachers and parents were urging him to find a way to share his work with a larger audience. The public schools were the most obvious place to share his music, but most of them have little or no funding for the arts. With help from friends and some very generous donors, in 2012 Tim founded a 501(c)3 educational nonprofit called Griffin Education Solutions, dedicated to using music as a tool for teaching science, math, and other subjects via the web, live shows, and songwriting workshops. All of GriffinEd's services are free to schools and other places of learning.

With four albums out now and a fifth coming in late 2016, Tim shares his standards-based music at schools, libraries, book fairs, teacher conferences, science-fiction conventions, family-friendly music festivals, and pretty much any place where geeky fun and learning are on the agenda. His long-term goal is to build GriffinEd's website into a complete online library of fun but rigorously educational music covering the entire K-8 curriculum.

Tim lives in La Canada, California with a lovely wife and a boy genius. He is still a fully credentialed teacher (California, multi-subject), coaches a cutthroat mathletics team in his free time, and is a presenting member of the CSTA, NSTA, AAAS, and Mensa.

Representative Work for the 2016 Best Performer Pegasus Award

Shoulders of Giants

Copyright © 2012 by Tim Griffin- All rights Reserved
Used by Permission

Aristotle said the world is a ball
Unrolled a scroll and made a map of it all
He put the planets in the sky, moving round the Earth every day

Copernicus drew a very different one
Pictured all the planets going 'round the Sun
Then Galileo built a telescope and said, "Hey, it sure looks that way."

(chorus)
You know that each generation learns a little bit more
Pulling back the curtain, opening up the door
But it's only when we're standing on the shoulders of giants
We can see the things we didn't before

Kepler said it had to run on rational rules
Tried to work it out with geometrical tools
He gave us orbital mechanics but he couldn't figure why it should be

Newton knew the secret when he saw an apple fall
Said there had to be one force to rule them all
He gave us three laws of motion and one more just for gravity

(repeat chorus)

(bridge)
Each generation finding new ways to question
How the pieces of the universe go
Each new breakthrough's just a part of the progression
And how far it'll go, I don't know

You know we're always redefining and refining the rules
That doesn't mean our predecessors were fools
It's like the pieces of a puzzle that they handed on to you and me

Maybe in another hundred years or two
People then may laugh at all we thought we knew
But they'll be standing on our shoulders when they brag about how far they can see

(repeat chorus)

Hershel and Hubble, Einstein and Bohr
Pulling back the curtain, opening up the door
But it's only when we're standing on the shoulders of giants
We can see the things we didn't before…

…and Aristotle said the world is a ball.