Abstract
If you’re teaching music today (or will be soon), your classroom is an increasingly diverse place, often containing students from a variety of countries and cultures, tastes and traditions. Whether you’re in an urban, suburban, or rural situation, a new publication called Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students: A Report on the 2017 Symposium on Music in Schools is worth reading. Created by the Yale School of Music in New Haven, Connecticut, this short document is available online at declaration.yale.edu.
So, what does National Association for Music Education (NAfME) have to do with this document? One of the five main values of the NAfME, found in its Strategic Plan (https://nafme.org/wp-content/files/2014/06/Strategic-Plan_revised-2016.pdf), is
The 2017 Symposium on Music in Schools included stakeholders from many institutions, organizations, and professional areas. NAfME was prominently represented because we believe that it is part of our mission to include as many people as possible in the wealth of experience that music education can bring to people of all ages.
Read the article in this issue of Music Educators Journal, “Every Student, Every City: A Call to Equity,” by three Yale University staffers who helped the report come to fruition. You may be surprised by what they have to say about who gets to learn music. Those who have the opportunity to teach and study music in their schools are fortunate. If we have a sense of justice, this privilege should belong to all young people, not just those in communities of means.
What can you do to help make music education available to more students in your community? Read the Declaration to glean some ideas; then go to declaration.yale.edu to join the conversation and take action.
Photo of Lynn M. Tuttle by Mark Finkenstaet.
