music education professors that NAfME is meant to represent, and your voices were heard. Now, both our national leadership and our MMEA need to turn our words into actions. Because we are an organization that champions “music for all,” MMEA is working with other policy and music education groups on legislation that would mandate music instruction in all elemen- tary schools in Michigan and would close the all-subjects cer- tification loophole so that all k-5 students will have ongoing, sequential music instruction from a specialist teacher.
But there is more work to do toward the goal of “music for all.” In Michigan, we know that kids from rural and urban places do not have the same access to music instruction as kids in the suburbs. In addition to working toward an elementary music instruction mandate, we need to support and strengthen second- ary music programs. Furthermore, we know that diversity is not limited to locale, socioeconomic status, or race. Students who have IEPs are often pulled from elementary music classrooms for additional instruction, and are less likely to participate in secondary music programs. Further, some music teachers need assistance to work effectively with students who come from different religious or cultural backgrounds, or who have limited proficiency in English.
In addition to continuing our events, advocacy, and policy ef- forts on behalf of our current MMEA members, I plan to seek out better ways to invite, welcome, and serve students and teachers in urban and rural settings. MMEA will also reach out to students and teachers whose music teaching and learning does not “fit” in the traditional boxes of band, orchestra, and choir. I will be visible at many MMEA events throughout the year, and I want to invite each of you to approach me with your ideas about becoming a more inclusive organization. How can we better support music students and teachers in urban and ru- ral areas? How can our events be more welcoming to students who have disabilities? What support can we provide for teach- ers who are working with students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds? How could we create venues for “non- traditional” music teaching and learning to flourish and grow? By continuing our strong programming for our current mem- bers, and bringing in new members from all types of schools and locales in Michigan, we can become “stronger together.” If you can’t catch me at an event, you can also email me anytime:
ksalvado@umflint.edu
We are a strong organization, one that I am proud to be a part of. I look forward to two years of serving the music students, music teachers, music education students, and music profes- sors by working toward “music for all” in Michigan. We are a non-partisan organization. We will work with those in office to advocate on behalf of music teachers and students, and we will continue our policy efforts to improve access to ongoing, sequential, high-quality music instruction for ALL students.
I have heard a lot this week from students and teachers who are worried that they are no longer welcomed or safe at school. Regardless of how you personally voted or why, I think we
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have to consider what students and teachers heard in this elec- tion. When the person elected to be the next president has said so many terrible things about women, Muslims, immigrants, disabled people… it is easy to see why some people feel like they do not live in the pluralistic, egalitarian society that they thought they did. However you voted, we can agree that our United States are grappling with disunity and with uncertainty, and that people are afraid.
In the school district my children attend, the administration has been working to diffuse tension that erupted among parents and others on social media after an incident in the middle school cafeteria. I have been proud of the response, which included this quote from the principal, Todd Noonan: Everyone is welcome in our community of learners. We build bridges. We work together. We push each other, respect each other. We help each other. That is who we are.
Leonard Bernstein said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” I think that is a beautiful sentiment, that can help us bring our classes and schools back together after this tough, divisive time.
Unfortunately, that won’t be enough. Yes, making music is why we are in schools, and why our students are with us. And we SHOULD unite as musicians in the creation of art as our pri- mary way of bringing students together. But the days that we could close the music room door and just make music with our kids are over—if they ever existed. Our students need to hear from us that we are in schools to make music for and with ALL kids—immigrant kids, Muslim kids, disabled kids, and the list continues. If we do not specifically disavow hate and exclu- sion, our kids are likely to hear our silence as acquiescence. Now, more than ever, we have to help our kids understand their unique value as individual human beings in our classes and en- sembles.
We also have to put our stake in the ground for public edu- cation as the way to provide music education for all. As you read above, the MMEA envisions a time when ALL children in Michigan have access to high-quality, ongoing, sequential mu- sic instruction. We are in a battle for the preservation of public education and of music education. I hope you will join us.
Karen Salvador MMEA President
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For more information, you may read this article from the New
York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/arts/music/ music-education-groups-leader-departs-after-remarks-on-div-
ersity.html?_r=1. NAfME also issued a statement: http://www.
nafme.org/national-association-for-music-education-announc- es-new-executive-director-and-ceo/. MMEA’s statement can be found by visiting
https://mmeamichigan.org/statement-regard- ing-nafme-michael-butera/
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