Obvious: All humans need to feel connected and have a sense of belonging. Less obvious: Teacher’s have less power to actually achieve this with all students than we think. We can WELCOME all students. But belonging has to be mutual and organic. Hot take: not ALL students need this from their school or ALL of their […]
belonging
Songs of reImagining: Your Turn
At my previous institution, I taught a senior capstone class. The class could be about any topic in performance, theory, or history, which left it pretty wide open. I felt strongly that the students should have a class on what I called “silenced voices,” a class that went back and covered the same survey timeline […]
“Belonging” Isn’t Top-Down
A hybrid episode! We run the risk of oversimplifying educational concepts, packaging them in seminars and professional development sessions for sale, and actually HARMING students. Or at least not helping them. Educational theories often carry precious little evidence, but we as educators frequently feel ill equipped to question them. Often times these oversimplifications are simply […]
My Favorite Part of the Job
Directing choirs is about the people… well, it’s kind of also about the music… but I’m not supposed to say that out loud, so it’s just about PEOPLE! I grew up captivated by music. It wasn’t until later that I fell in love with the transformative personal power of group singing. Since that time, I […]
Choral Music is a Celebration of What We Have in Common
While using our differences to our advantage. I have become very interested over the last three years in learning from people that see the world through lenses that rarely get amplified on social media or by large institutions. They seem to me, rightly or wrongly, as interesting BECAUSE they are different. The defier of stereotypes […]