Te Importance of Fort Building in Music Education


Te following is the text from my keynote talk at the 2018 NJMEA Summer Workshop.


Colleen Sears


One of NJMEA’s current strategic initiatives is a focus on inclusion and diversity in our pro- fession. Issues related to equity, inclusion, and diversity have always existed in music and mu- sic education. Race, class, gender, sexuality, and varying abilities have long impacted access and opportunity in school music and beyond. And yet, it seems as if these issues were not partic- ularly at the front and center of our profession until the former president of NAfME, Michael Butera, made his now infamous comments back in 2016, in which he blamed the lack of di- versity in our profession on his perception that “blacks and Latinos lack the keyboard skills needed for this field.”1


And with those words,


issues related to diversity in music education were thrust into the spotlight, and into the New York Times, and into everyday conversation amongst music teachers. As is the usual case with flashpoint incidents like this, a litany of apologies, councils on issues related to diversity, and new policies emerged from NAfME. While these are all steps in a positive direction, I oſten wonder how far those steps reach. Do they ex- tend beyond the well-designed websites, press releases, diversity grant recipients, and people who serve on those councils? Te focus of my talk is this: What does access, diversity, equity and inclusion in music education mean for all of us in this room right now. What does it mean for all of our individual communities, build- ings, classrooms, and students that we serve?


I have a seven-year old daughter, and one of her favorite books is Te Day the Crayons Quit2


and


the sequel, Te Day the Crayons Came Home3 by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jef- fers. (If you don’t know these books, I implore you to go directly to the children’s section of the nearest Barnes and Noble and read them im- mediately!) Te story begins like this. “One day in class, Duncan went to take out his crayons and found a stack of letters with his name on them.”4


What follows are essentially resignation


Your empty friend, White Crayon.5


PINK CRAYON Duncan,


Okay, LISTEN HERE KID! You have not used me ONCE in the past year. It’s because you think I am a girl’s color, isn’t it? Speaking of which, please tell your little sister I said thank you for using me to color in her “Little Prin- cess” coloring book. I think she did a fabulous job of staying inside the lines. Now, back to us. Could you PLEASE use me sometime to color the occasional PINK dinosaur or MONSTER or COWBOY? Goodness knows they could use a splash of color.


Your unused friend, Pink Crayon6


PEACH CRAYON Hey Duncan,


It’s me. PEACH CRAYON. Why did you peel off my paper wrapping? Now I’m NAKED and too embarrassed to leave the crayon box. I don’t


6


letters from his crayons, in which each color aired their grievances regarding their dissatis- faction about how they are used. I’ll give you a few of my favorite examples.


WHITE CRAYON Dear Duncan,


You color with me, but why? Most of the time I’m the same color as the page you are using me on – WHITE. If I didn’t have a black outline, you wouldn’t even know I was THERE! I’m not even in the rainbow. I’m only used to color snow or to fill in the empty space between other things. And it leaves me feeling, well, empty. We need to talk.


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