band
Let’s Listen and Question With Open Minds and Hearts Full of Awe and Wonder Carrie Backman, WMEA State Chair, Band
If you’re like me, this summer and all that is to come feels full of hope and pos- sibility. I feel like everything we get to do again in life feels like we’re experi- encing it for the first time, like a child
again, with that enthusiasm and wonder. What a gift! In this time of spiritual and mental renewal for us all, we are giving ourselves the gift of listening to ourselves and what we as teachers need at the center. In the academic year, this will shift and become our collective focus of Students at the Center. As we dive into another adventure with students and in educa- tion, this is also a time to enter with awe, wonder, enthusiasm and an openness to new beginnings.
We ask a lot of questions when we teach. This helps ignite curiosity, student choice, student engagement, and discussion. Ask- ing questions also allows opportunities for listening, another skill that we teach.
With our students at the center of every- thing we do, now more than ever, I encour- age us all to listen by asking questions of ourselves, our students, and others. Not a single one of us has the answer to student needs or responses to those needs. But
collectively and through questioning and active listening by us we do!
In lieu of writing a complicated action plan for curriculum and pretending that I know the answers to student needs, let me instead write questions that I have found useful. I originally worked to have this be an article of thoughts from students and a diverse pool of colleagues based on these questions, but in the absence of time and perfect organization in the summer, it actually seems more authentic and rich to pose the questions so we can all hear the answers from those we choose to reach out to and ourselves. Let’s actively practice what we teach.
Possible Questions for Students
• Why are you a music student? Or Why aren’t you a music student?
• What is exciting to you and what do you feel you are an expert on in music?
• What do you want to learn more about in music?
• What do you value in life and what is most important to you?
• What connections can you make with music education and your future life?
• What connections have you made with music and others because of music?
Stay Connected /WSMAmusic 24
• What do you enjoy or value in performing?
• What is your favorite thing to cre- ate in life?
• What response have you had to a piece of music recently?
• What is important to you this school year with music?
° What would you like to continue and why?
° What would you like to change and why?
° What would you like to add and why?
Possible Questions for Ourselves
• Why do I teach?
• What is my plan for the school year and who is it coming from?
° Am I trying to do what I am most excited about?
° Am I trying to please a certain group of people,
person or idealogy?
° Am I responding to what I hear from students and
community?
° Am I finding a healthy bal- ance of listening to student
centered needs and what I value in a curriculum?
• Who or what influence do I listen to the most and why?
• Where and to whom am I most flexible or inflexible and why? How does this help or not help and who?
• What do I value most in music edu- cation and what do I want students to leave a classroom knowing, feel- ing, and valuing in their future?
• How do my repertoire choices reflect my community?
September 2021
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