I’ve been doing lots of thinking and reflecting on what feels alive these days for me personally as an educator, as a music educator, as an activist and as a person. These days, what feels most alive within me as a music educator is not music education for the sake of music education. What does feel very much alive is fostering personal connections with my students through music making, getting and giving joy through the process of musicing in community and coming together as a community to fight for social injustices through musicing. In the following three blog posts, I will like to unpack a bit about each of these three *live strands.

Connecting on a personal level with students allows for our shared experience to be a human one. It allows us to blur the lines between us & them and it ultimately allows me to teach and learn from them better. Knowing my students as individuals and they knowing me as an individual, affords us one another the opportunity and possibly to trust, learn, teach, challenge and grow together. In their book “Music Matters”, authors David Elliott & Marissa Silverman state: “knowing and understanding our students as individual human beings-as persons-is central to being an educative and ethical educator.” Striving for this kind of human and ethical greatness feels very alive within me. Why do I teach? Because I want those things that feel alive within me to change the world. I also want the things that feel alive within my students to change me.

Last Thursday, this one thing that felt alive in one of my students, changed me. Because it felt alive to her, it felt more alive in me. As one of my beginner middle school mix ensemble classes was getting to a close, we lead a circle discussion as we always do. This week’s rehearsal was magical because it was the first time that the students sounded “like a band”. Two months in (8 rehearsals of 45 minutes each) and students were able to play their individual parts while following a specific pattern of chord changes, keeping track of the beats and listen to each other’s part. This accomplishment is not easy for any beginner class and it is definitely not easy for my students on the autism spectrum. I asked them to reflect about what was different today than last Thursday?

They were all aware of what had happened. There was no need for me to “point it out” They said the music flowed, that it showed that we’ve been working hard, and that it showed that most students were taking their jobs with a great degree of seriousness. They said they were proud of themselves. They also threw shade to one of the students who they did not feel was taking his job as seriously as he could. They first gave them the “shade” look and then they told him they knew he could do better. They asked and demanded that he did. I stayed out of it.

Then one of the brilliant young women in the class said: “ I felt alive. I felt like I forgot what I was supposed to be doing because the music sounded so good.” And so that statement changed me. That statement brought me back to being twelve and feeling alive for the first time because I was able to play a song with my buddies. Elliott and Silverman open their book “Music Matters” with the following sentence: “We propose that music and music education should consider the interrelationships between music, education and personhood. Because music is made with and for people, people are at the core of all musical transactions.” I love when theory and practice cross each other’s path. The philosophies of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, David Elliott ,Marissa Silverman,and W.E. Dubois, inform my practice as a critical pedagogue. The philosophies of Art Blakey, Pete Seeger, Common, Janelle Monaé and Nina Simone influence my pracrice as a music educator. Thus, I am able to recognize that what feels most alive in me these days, is my desire to teach the individual and not the subject through music education. It is not the notes on the page that change the world. It is the muiscmakers.

In my music classes we play music and through that play, we go deep. We get silly and dream of having kittens as classroom pets or conductors and we also have deep conversations about the way the world works and about music making. We play the songs and jam and use autotune pedals and we also reflect on our work. We practice being critical thinkers and critical reflectors. We talk about how music affects us as individuals and we practice coming together as musicers to change the world.

Recognizing and acting upon my deep passion to foster strong personal connections with the human beings that partake in the music learning experience inside my classroom has lead me to explore what does it look like to hold space for honesty, truth, democracy, empathy, fairness, patience and vulnerability for them and for myself. Through the process of being in community with my students and being open to and available to build personal relationships I change them and they change me. This is a beautiful thing to be a part of.

Why is it so important that we build strong interpersonal connections with and amongst our students during the music classroom? Well, number one, because it makes for better music making. While in college in New Orleans, I studied jazz drums with drummer John Vidavocivh.

Johnny V as everyone calls him, has been performing with a group of friends of over forty years named Astral Project. When Astral Project performs, it is truly an astral projection (pun intended). Those guys love each other and it shows. Their strong interpersonal bonds allow them to make music that is truly transcended. They may not always agree on everything and even like each other all the time, but their love has carried their band for over forty years. Their music is electric, engaging, masterful, funky, refined, original and honest. Their sound is unique. Their camaraderie is evident. This, I wish upon my students. You can check them out here

Ultimately, I think that it is of outmost important that we as teachers embed interpersonal-ness into every aspect of our work because interpersonal relationships are fueled by love. And the world needs more love these days. We all can benefit from more love. African American scholar and writer bell hooks talks about love in a way that ties this work together for me. In “All About Love: New Visions” she writes: “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients — care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

Sure, teaching students solfege and paradiddles and guitar chord shapes is important. Teaching students how to recognize form and how to keep a steady beat is important and should be done. However, all these skills are finite. They can be learned and mastered. Learning how to be honest, respectful, trusting, affectionate, and careful of ourselves as well as of the musicians whom we are creating with, will give us infinite opportunities to explore a lifetime of joy, self expression and self realization. This can and should happen in the music classroom.