Abstract
March is Music in Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®), and this year’s theme for this 33-year-old celebration is
Music educators often teach their young musicians for several years, which provides the opportunity to develop positive and supportive relationships with students of all backgrounds, socioeconomic levels, and degrees of maturity. Music teachers frequently provide listening ears for students facing severe challenges ranging from bullying to homelessness. The music teacher, who may maintain a connection with students over many years, is often the trusted adult who is best able make a real difference in the lives of students.
Because a music teacher is one of the most approachable people in our students’ world, we need to be prepared to help kids who come to us with their problems. While we’re not experts in behavioral health or trained in psychology, we need to keep open minds and hearts when our students seek our advice and look to us for moral support. Among this issue’s articles on such topics as assessment, critical listening, entrepreneurship, informal music experiences, and musical independence, the article “The Rainbow Connection: How Music Classrooms Create Safe Spaces for Sexual-Minority Young People” by William Southerland explores the importance of a refuge in music classrooms and music programs for students who don’t know where else to turn. In addition, Jacqueline Kelly-McHale offers her perspective on exclusionary practices in music education and how we sometimes need to challenge long-held assumptions.
Teaching music is an essential part of any legitimate education system. But as the old saying goes, we do more than teach music—we teach children. Through music, we help kids develop the dispositions that they need to become full contributors to society. As our students learn to create, perform, and respond to music in our classrooms and rehearsal spaces, they inevitably explore ways to solve problems, resolve differences, and forge respectful relationships with others. They learn openness and respect for the work of others, they learn about self-reflection and collaboration, and more. By our actions as teachers and by working together through NAfME, we help
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