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In my last post, I shared that my initial career aspiration in music was to become the principal flutist of a major metropolitan symphony orchestra. As I changed my path and decided to go into music education, my first few years of teaching consisted not only of teaching general music, but also band, and I maintained a private woodwinds studio for many years.
While I am now primarily a general music and choral educator, I firmly believe that my framework of Culturally Responsive Music Education applies to every music discipline, not just because of my firsthand experience across so many different music disciplines, but because of my belief that music is the vehicle for which we can learn about ourselves, others, and the world. Of course we want our young musicians to develop their musicianship skills, but the real goal is to help them lead more fulfilling lives wherein they are better in touch with themselves and the world around them.
In today’s post, I’m going to share four tips for Culturally Responsive Music Education in the ensemble and performance focused classroom.
Tip #1: Address Your Mindset
Before one can even begin to transform their teaching practices to be more equitable and inclusive, one must first interrogate their own cultural frames of reference, beliefs, and biases.
In the ensemble classroom, we often see a need for the addressing of teacher mindset when discussion around “traditional” ways of teaching band, orchestra, or choir comes up. We know that the demographics of our students have been changing, and we also know the importance of instruction being relevant to our students.
What can be difficult is acknowledging that some of those “traditional ways” of teaching were never intended to be inclusive of all people who may want to participate in ensembles in the first place. They weren’t designed for all of us and one way that we see evidence of this is when we examine the demographics of many school ensemble programs and find that those demographics do not always match the demographics of the school community.
Being willing to examine your own frames of reference and biases to unlearn and learn so that your ensemble is truly equitable & inclusive takes time and intentional effort. You may find that you need to adjust your audition guidelines, performance uniform options, rehearsal expectations, and more as you challenge what is “traditional.” Culturally Responsive ensemble directors know the importance of addressing one’s mindset and are willing to imagine another way of being for their ensembles so that the ensemble room is a place for everyone.
Tip #2: Center Student voice & choice
A key component of a culturally responsive music ensemble is intentional space for student voice and choice. Unfortunately, a traditional approach to teaching ensembles usually consists of the director making all the musical decisions about what music will be performed, how it will be performed, and then directing the students to carry out those choices.
Instead, consider how student voices can be centered in the process of music selection. The students will be the ones performing the music after all, so how can you as the director of the ensemble ensure that their voice is the key component in musical selection? That’s not to say that the students come up with all the programming choices on their own, however directors can and should be working in partnership with students. Culturally Responsive ensemble directors know the importance of centering their students’ voices and choices and make this a regular part of programming decisions, rehearsals, and performance.
Tip #3: Get to Know Your Students (beyond what you can read on the demographic page on the school website)
Often when I talk with fellow music educators about their students, they go right to the demographic data such as the race(s) of their students or the number of students who receive special education services. But when I ask about your students, I’m more curious about learning who your students are and not just descriptions of their race, ability, etc.
It’s quite simple to begin the journey of becoming a student of your students by beginning with the demographic information from your school website, but you can’t stop there because that information won’t tell you who your students are.
To learn who your students are, you need to be in dialogue with them. What are their interests? What do they do for fun? What are their hopes and dreams? What’s their take on current events?
In a busy ensemble classroom that is preparing for numerous concerts each year, I know it can seem daunting to also ensure you’re making space to really talk with each of your students and learn about them, but this is what separates a typical ensemble director from the great ones and the ones who are intentionally employing culturally responsive practices. After all, how can you even begin to know what will be relevant to your students if you don’t know what they value and find meaningful?
Just as you engage in warm ups at the beginning of your rehearsal to prepare students for the style of the pieces they are getting ready to rehearse, or the music concepts they will engage with, consider how you can also make it a regular practice for students to share about themselves and learn about each other. Culturally Responsive ensemble directors know that getting to know their students is an intentional process over time, and not a beginning of the year, one and done “get to know you” activity.
Tip #4: Program repertoire that connects to bigger ideas and understandings
Part of what goes into programming repertoire is based on students’ technical ability and skills, and while this is absolutely important, I challenge you to think bigger than just whether or not students will be able to learn to play or sing a piece.
Remember: music is the vehicle, not the ultimate destination. How can you make repertoire choices that will lead to students learning more about themselves, others, and the world?
When considering pieces to program, culturally responsive ensemble directors consider how learning about the composers, the composer’s intent, and the context of the piece will help students to connect and expand their minds.
Yes, students need to learn the technical aspects of performing the music, but I argue that also learning the “story” of the repertoire is just as important because this is how we move beyond simple facts and figures of music, and towards a robust approach to musical teaching and learning.
Making relevant connections with the music alongside learning the technique to perform it, is one way that culturally responsive ensemble directors help students find meaning in the music they are performing. Culturally responsive ensemble directors know that making relevant connections to the music must not be an afterthought, but intentionally planned.
Culturally Responsive Music Education: A Framework for Transformation for all Music Disciplines
My four-part framework for Culturally Responsive Music Education is a comprehensive roadmap to help us understand how to move towards transformative change in our music classrooms, no matter the music discipline. While it is a common misconception that by simply diversifying your repertoire that you have accomplished becoming a culturally responsive educator (more on misconceptions about culturally responsive teaching in this blog post), the truth is that diversifying repertoire is only one piece of culturally responsive teaching practices.
Addressing one’s mindset, intentionally developing a supportive learning environment, and instructional strategies that move students towards independent musicianship in addition to diverse musical content are how we transform our teaching practices to be culturally responsive. It is not simply a strategy, but a mindset shift.
How are you implementing culturally responsive practices in your ensemble classroom?
I would love to hear how you’re implementing culturally responsive practices in your ensemble classroom! Share below or share on social media and tag me: I’m @ACuthbertson10 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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Until next time,
Ashley
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Yes Ashley – any transforming work (health, pedagogy, relationships, etc.) comes from a mindset shift! Thanks for the thoughtful blog!
Thanks for reading, Michelle!