Promoting Students' Agency in the Music Classroom

Hi all, I have been away from this space for a while. 2021 was absolutely crazy. 

2022 brings hopes of getting back to the things that I enjoy most. Writing about my experiences in the music classroom is one of them. 

I would like to start the year by sharing with you some of the strategies and activities that worked for me in the classroom to promote students' agency. 

At the start of the 2021-2022 school year, I made it my goal to focus on creating a space for my students where they could explore their identities. Our mantra is, "every day is a new beginning and I get to choose to show who I am." I asked them "How do you want to be seen?" 

Whether we are listening or making music, navigating how to play various instruments, getting into ensembles, or composing a song, our identities are bound to come out at every step of each activity. 

With all the trauma we have endured the past two years, I must create trauma-informed lesson plans that purposefully embed social-emotional competencies at every step to allow my students to embrace their humanity amid our current reality and to learn how to identify, name, and self-regulate their emotions. Here is a great handout and checklist of social and emotional competencies. 

According to the sociology dictionary, agency is "the capacity of an individual to actively and independently choose and to affect change; free will or self-determination."

To me, agency and assertiveness are the paths to liberation. 

Here are ways I promote students' agency in our music classroom.

• Each class creates its own set of norms

This year, I stopped using the generic music norms. The MUSIC norms acronyms promote the one size fits all culture. I am no longer perpetuating conformity or compliance in our music room. Each class is different, has different needs, and reacts differently to our environment,  so why use the same set of norms for everyone?  

When I presented the idea to my students at the beginning of the year I asked them, "is your 4th grade class the same as the other 4th grade class?" of course they said no.  I also asked them, "who knows best what you need?" naturally they replied, they do. 

I told them that our goal was to create a space where we could all be physically and emotionally safe in our room. 

We treated this as a simple songwriting project, I printed and displayed each classroom norm and posted it in the room. It is part of our class routines to start our music class rapping our norms each day. It has dramatically changed the culture of our classroom and increased accountability. Let me know if you would like to know about the process we used to accomplish this. 

• Have Choice Days

My students love Choice Days. Along with the creation of their norms, they also had to make decisions on how they wanted to be recognized for maintaining a safe classroom community. Some classrooms were more individualistic and decided they wanted to select a random mystery student each day they were successful. This student gets to go to a treasure box for a prize. Others wanted a day of celebration for the entire class when accumulating a certain amount of days upholding classroom expectations. 

During this day, they get to choose, from a menu of their favorite music activities, how they want to spend their music time. 

Some of these activities include folk dances, music centers, Just Dance parties, music movies, and music games such as silent instruments, pass the beat around, composer or pasta, and opera or cheese, just to name a few. 

Choice Days also offer the opportunity for a great sub-plan as the students are in charge. I do make sure to practice the activities and the Choice Day procedures with them before they experience it with a guest teacher. 

• Choices, choices, and more choices

After teaching the fundamentals of the instrument we are exploring or the activity we are engaging in, I differentiate for each student by offering multiple entry points. I offer many ways to engage with the material,  and it is up to them to decide what works best for them. 

For example, when teaching ukulele, and after providing instruction on the fundamentals, I always offer a variety of songs for them to choose from. I provide independent practice time individually and with a group. When practicing in a group, they have to navigate how to best play together. Some of them decide to divide the chords of the song between each group member while others tackle all the chords as an ensemble.  I let them decide when they feel they have sufficiently practiced and when they need a break. Finally, after providing the rubric that I will use to track progress, they decide how they want to showcase their progress. 

• Other low stakes ways are:

• Have the students suggest songs for the class "happy" playlist. In my classroom, they enter to music playing every day. They enjoy the anticipation of which song we will play that day and set the mood for the day. 

• Have the students suggest artists to be featured in the wall of accomplished, inspiring, successful musicians.