Reimagining the arts as a vehicle for innovation, leadership, and lifelong success.
Listen to this blog post by clicking the player below! An essential part of cultivating a culturally responsive music room is developing a learning community where young musicians feel affirmed and safe enough to take the risks necessary to move past surface level knowledge into deep understandings. Let’s talk about why building a strong community … Read more
Listen to this blog post by clicking the player below! Heading back into the classroom at the beginning of a new school year, I know that one of the things on your mind as you set up your music program is how to develop classroom expectations, norms, or rules. As you consider how this will … Read more
Listen to this blog post by clicking the player below! It’s back to school time! As music educators, we have a million things on our beginning of the year to-do list: setting up our rooms, staff meetings, district training, pacing guides, the list goes on and on. But before you get too far into your … Read more
Listen to this blog post by clicking the player below! In my last blog post, I shared several programming structures that you can use to center student voice and choice in your ensemble classrooms (click here to check out that post!). But what could a rehearsal look like that intentionally centers culturally responsive practices? Remember, … Read more
Listen to this blog post by clicking the player below! In the traditional ensemble setting, the music director typically makes all the programming decisions for what the ensemble will perform. These programming decisions are typically informed by what the director thinks is appropriate technique-wise for the musicians, what the director thinks students may be interested … Read more
Listen to this blog post by clicking on the player below! Culturally Responsive Music classrooms attend to the identities and unique strengths of learners, and also move them towards independent musicianship through skillfully crafted instruction and learning experiences. A key factor in high quality instruction is assessment. Not to be confused with grading, assessment is … Read more