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An often missed opportunity when planning and creating the foundation for your music program is setting the vision. Of course, we must consider our curriculum when we think about our vision for our music programs: the repertoire we’ll teach, what musicians we’ll explore, what skills & concepts we’ll develop, what activities we’ll engage in, and what music we’ll make. But what really do you envision for the young musicians in your program?
And let’s take this a step further: as a culturally responsive music educator, what do you envision for your young musicians and their learning?
We teach kids, not content.
As culturally responsive music educators, it’s crucial that before we dive into curriculum, concert repertoire, activities, etc, that we first set our vision for our music room. This means we need to begin with the experience our students will have in our music programs before we plan for the content.
As music educators committed to culturally responsive & inclusive instruction, when setting our vision for our music programs, it’s imperative that cultural responsiveness, inclusion, diversity, and equity are at the heart of our visions for our music programs.
3 Ways to Center Cultural Responsiveness in the Vision for Your Music Program
1. Commit to unlearning & learning
We all have unlearning to do. We all have biases, both conscious and unconscious, this is part of being a human being in society. What’s important is that you are aware of what those biases are so that you can make sure that the way you interact with others is in a thoughtful and supportive way.
Discovering and attending to those biases requires critical self-reflection to dig into not just what those biases are, but WHY those biases came to be. For me, one bias that I continually work to unlearn is the need for control.
Unfortunately, control is a mainstay in the practices we see in public schooling, for example having only certain times to go to the bathroom, having to sit in a certain place for a specific amount of time, wearing certain attire for the concert, etc. I understand that this bias comes from the fact that I grew up in the public school system for both my K-12 and undergraduate schooling, and I have taught in traditional public schools, and so this is what I have experienced as normalized and expected.
Because my model for education has included the element of control, I have to be very thoughtful in my own unlearning to counteract this.
2. Commit to centering your young musicians
“Centering our students” has unfortunately become a buzz phrase that gets thrown around without any clear examples of what it actually means and how it shows up in our practices.
Centering our students means that we, as educators, are working in partnership with our students to ensure that the learning moves we make allow for them to help us decide what will best support their learning.
This isn’t just referring to what students are interested in (although student interests are important to be reflected in your instruction!) but HOW they need to learn so that they don’t just gain surface level knowledge, but understanding that transfers into different contexts.
Planning out your whole year’s worth of curriculum and concert programs down to every detail may make you feel good, but it also is most likely not leaving space for student input. Instead, consider how you can still have a plan and vision for the year, but that it’s flexible enough to include input from your young musicians.
3. Commit to flexibility
Being a culturally responsive music educator means that I have to be ready to be flexible and pivot at any particular moment. Sometimes this means that we have a beautifully planned lesson ready to go, but we see our young musicians coming in needing to have a mental break, or time to work out an interpersonal conflict. We need to pivot to make sure those needs are met first before we go on with instruction.
Being committed to flexibility means that we are still clear about our expectations, but that we also demonstrate through our actions and responses that our young musicians as people & learners are the most important and that we will move in ways that show that, even if (or even especially if) that means that our original plan needs to be adjusted.
Reflection Questions When Setting the Vision for Your Music Classroom
So, my culturally responsive music educator friends, consider these questions when setting your vision:
- How do you want learners to feel?
- In what ways do you want them to stretch?
- How do you envision learners will interact with you?
- How do you envision learners will interact with each other?
- What do you want them to believe about themselves and each other?
- What do you want them to believe about music?
- How will you center diversity in your vision?
- How will you ensure inclusion & equity in your vision?
- How will you attend to learner voice & choice in your vision?
And we can set and re-set our vision throughout the year, in fact this is expected! We work with human beings who are learning and growing, and so are we. This learning and growing necessitates tweaks in our vision so we can remain responsive to our young musicians.
In What Other Ways Can We Center Cultural Responsiveness?
I selected just three ways to center cultural responsiveness in your vision, what other ways would you add?
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Until next time,
Ashley
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