Culturally Responsive Music classroom

Teaching this year has me feeling like a first-year teacher all over again, and I am trying to make the best out of the situation.  There are so many things that are different about this school year that it is impossible to approach our jobs the same way. In order to address this year’s new challenges, a divided nation, a health crisis, teaching through a pandemic, a society reckoning with social justice, we can not plan/teach the same way or use the same materials. We have to start from scratch, and that is ok.  Starting from scratch, with our music standards to guide us, provides the opportunity to really look at what we are teaching and how we are truly impacting our students.  I am a goal-oriented person and my goals for this year are:  To survive To keep the joy of music alive in my students  And most importantly, to keep inclusion at the center of everything I do, “let them be seen” To keep inclusion at the center of my teaching, these are the things I kee...

From September 15th through October 15th we celebrate the presence of the Latino Culture in the USA. As you read, you will notice how I use the term Latino and Hispanic interchangeably, keep reading and you will find out why. Although a month is not enough to acknowledge the contributions made by the Latinx community, coming from 34 different countries south of the border to the USA, it is a good start to highlight the richness and complexity of all the different cultures. What makes us Latinos? How about the countries in South America and the Caribbean whose official language is English, are they Latinos too?  Does the term Latino-Hispanic exclude Jamaica, Belice, or Trinidad y Tobago because they speak English, a Germanic language? Or Guyana and Suriname because they speak Dutch? How about French Guinea in South America, being a French territory? All of these countries have a common geographical location and most of them share Romance Languages derived from Latin. Hence the term ...

Music of BBIA peoples in the General Music and Choir Room (BBIA stands for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian) As the discussion about the inherently racist aspects in the origins of minstrel repertoire continues, I find that I need to create a list of alternative repertoire along with reviewing which songs I will probably not use anymore. In my elementary classroom, there is no space for them. As an elementary teacher, I rarely find the appropriate space to have discussions about specific pieces of music and their historical context of injustice, discrimination, and dehumanization of a race. I also don’t feel I have the tools yet, I am working on it, to guide this kind of discussion with my upper elementary students and their families. For these reasons, I am excluding these pieces from my curriculum.   Stories are important and they help us relate to others' reality and allow for a plethora of diverse voices. For these reasons, I tell you a little bit about me so you can unders...

  When preparing our room for our students this upcoming fall, we are always looking for meaningful ways to make our walls as appealing and fun as they are instructional. Our classrooms tend to be a music theory, music history, and inspirational book all at the same time. I know that some of us are going to be teaching on a cart, this idea that I am sharing with you today can translate to that format too.  During my first year of teaching full time, I was at a brand new school, which put me in charge of buying everything for the classroom. It was an extremely stressful and exciting time. As you all know, anchor charts and posters of famous musicians are always part of the list of materials to get, so I did. When this arrived I felt that the packet for composers was incomplete. Honestly, I have always felt this way and if you want to add female composers, you need to buy a different packet. For this reason, I created my own. I’m blessed with a room with generous space and I dis...

Crecí cantando en coros y considero que mi experiencia como corista es parte intrínseca de mi formación como ser humano. Lo primero que me llevó a ser parte de un coro fue el aspecto social, pero lo que obtuve fue mucho más. Estoy segura de que muchos de ustedes pueden sentir afinidad. Al reflexionar sobre mi experiencia en el coro mientras crecía y cómo interactuaba con la música en ese entonces, me di cuenta de que perdimos muchas oportunidades para aprender en profundidad sobre la música que estábamos cantando. La falta de tiempo para ir más allá de la partitura siempre fue, y sigue siendo, un gran incoveniente Pero, la música toma otro significado despues de una experiencia tan traumática como la que estamos viviendo.  Como resultado del movimiento actual de lucha por los derechos civiles de la comunidad afroamericana, muchos maestros hemos comenzado a hablar sobre cómo abordaremos la planificación y la enseñanza de nuestros programas de ahora en adelante. Todos estamos desarro...

I grew up singing in choirs and I consider my choir experience an intrinsic part of my formation into the human that I am today. What first attracted me to be part of a choir was the social aspect, but what I got was so much more. I am sure many of you can relate. As I reflect on my own choir experience growing up and how I interacted with the music then, I realized there were so many missed opportunities to learn more in-depth about the music we were singing.  Lack of time to go beyond the score was always and still is, our biggest challenge.  But, music takes a whole different meaning after a traumatic event like the one we are experiencing. As a result of the current civil rights movement, many of us have started to talk about how we are going to approach planning and teaching for our programs from now on. We are all developing an acute awareness of the music we present to our students and a deep desire to allow more equitable opportunities to sing underrepresented composer...

Actualmente estamos viviendo tiempos de muchas tensiones raciales. Durante estos tiempos la humanidad tiende a prestar atención a algunos aspectos de la sociedad que requieren atención. Se requiere que exista un cambio en la sociedad para que las comunidades puedan seguir creciendo.  Es importante crear un lugar para que sucedan todos los tipos de conversación necesarias. Yo tiendo a usar las redes sociales para ventilar y espacios como este para contribuir productivamente a la conversación. La idea principal detrás de este espacio es documentar mis experiencias como educadora musical de escuela primaria, a medida que exploro y me perfecciono en prácticas culturalmente receptivas e inclusivas, con la esperanza de crear un ambiente para mis estudiantes donde todos puedan sentirse representados, reconocidos y valorados. Como reacción a la narrativa actual, muchos colegas están hablando de compartir literatura con nuestros estudiantes que representen a las comunidad de color de manera...

We are currently living very stressful times. I find that during these times humanity tends to pay attention to some aspects of society needing intervention. Societal change is necessary before communities can continue to grow. There needs to be a place for all types of conversations to happen. I tend to use social media for venting and spaces like this to contribute productively to the conversation. The main idea behind this space is to document my journey as an elementary music teacher, as I explore and better myself in culturally responsive practices, in hopes to create an environment for my students where they can all feel represented, acknowledged, and valued. As a reaction to the current narrative, many colleagues are talking about sharing literature with our students that represent black and brown people in a positive light. Some started documents to add their title suggestions and that reminded me of one that I started a couple of years ago. I LOVE LISTS! It is important for ou...

Hace un tiempo que vengo pensando en escribir un blog sobre educación musical, pero no podía decidir sobre qué escribir. Ya existen muchas opciones excelentes donde educadores musicales pueden encontrar buenas ideas para avivar su práctica como educadores musicales. Así que, lo que yo espero con este blog es crear un espacio donde podamos hablar sobre prácticas culturalmente receptivas en el salón musical y compartir ideas de lecciones musicales y repertorio coral infantil que promuevan una visión cultural inclusiva. Me encantaría comenzar con una historia de cómo yo llegué a este espacio en mi carrera educativa. Quizás es el sentimiento de extranjera que cargo conmigo, mientras navego mi tan hospitalario país huésped, que aumenta mi habilidad para apreciar toda la diversidad que existe a mi alrededor o quizás a mi siempre me ha atraído la idea de aprender sobre culturas diferentes a la mía. Una de las experiencias que más disfruto es el caminar por las calles de una ciudad populosa y ...

I’ve been wanting to start a music education blog for a long time now. I just couldn’t decide what I wanted to say. There are many excellent options out there, where teachers can find really great ideas to infuse their music teaching practices. So my hope for this space is to start a conversation about culturally responsive practices in the music classroom and to share music lessons and children choir repertoire ideas that are culturally inclusive. I would like to start with a little background into what brought me here. Perhaps the foreign sentiment that I carry with me, as I navigate my welcoming host country, heightens my senses to all the diversity around me; or maybe I have always been drawn to learn about different cultures. One of my favorite things to experience is to walk through a highly populated, diverse city and listen to all of the different languages spoken around me all at once. All of these and my passion for music education has led me to believe that music is one of t...

I'm a general music educator, choir director/singer, and clinician. A native of the Dominican Republic currently living in Colorado, I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, the first University in the American Continent, and a Master's Degree in Music Education with an emphasis on choral music from the University of Northern Colorado. Currently, I am the general music teacher at the Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer in Lafayette, Colorado, and the children and youth choir director at First Congregational Church of Greeley, Colorado. As a K-5 music educator, she believes music is a very effective way to learn about cultures. She is passionate about the importance of increasing diversity and representation in music education, in ways that are culturally responsive, fun, meaningful, and inclusive in order to embrace each other with respect, tolerance, and a sense of belonging. I have presented clinics and reading sessions...