Just to repeat Eve's plaudits of James Hill and Chalmers Doane's work in the Canadian provinces. They're doing incredible work up there and Chalmers' original program for the Canadian school system created a number of phenomenal musicians, including James himself.   

One of the things that I like about ukuleles in general is their flexibility in terms of style. They adapt themselves well to open tunings and a broad variety of styles. They're one of my favorite instruments to play Jazz because of the ease of creating different and complicated voicings without becoming an instant subscriber to the carpal tunnel journal of premature physical therapy. That and the ability to sing and harmonize on a broad variety of musics, ease of play and accessibility make it very attractive for educators and anyone who is making the attempt to have more people play together rather than treat music as a spectator sport. There are also lots of groups, resources, books, videos and cultural interest that exist around the instrument, which doesn't seem to be the case so much with the recorder in the communities I frequent.

Not that I don't like recorders. I'm interested to know if anyone out there is doing anything with them and harmony in schools. I think their tone is just about ideal. I'd also be curious to know if anyone is doing anything with the mountain dulcimer in education. Again, there are a number of decent inexpensive ones, relatively easy to play and great to sing with.

Anyone?