Abstract
Dear colleagues,
As I reflect on the 20+ years I have served in education, I am amazed at how much has changed and how much has also stayed the same. Students are obviously still at the center of what we do, and the foundational content of music education has not changed. A whole note still lasts for four beats in 4/4 time and the interval of a perfect fifth still exists. A440 has not changed, nor has the experience of seeing a student light up when he or she understands a new concept.
Still, most teachers did not have a computer in their classrooms back in the mid-1990s. Lesson plans were written out by hand, unless you were lucky enough to have access to a computer lab to type them up. When I first started teaching, I had a record player and tape deck in the music classroom. I still remember bringing in my portable CD player to play some of my music for the students. E-mail was not mainstream at the time, and if I wanted to talk to a fellow colleague in the district, I had to pick up the phone or send them a message through “interdepartmental mail.”
Now most teachers have a computer in their classroom, and we can quickly send out an e-mail to one of our colleagues in our district or in a district across the nation. Some classrooms are fully equipped with SMART Boards/ActivBoards and stereos with Bluetooth® available. Some teachers still pull out the record player because it provides an experience for the students that is indescribable, especially when you pull out the record itself and one student exclaims, “OH MY GOODNESS, that is the biggest CD I have ever seen!” Soon students will no longer know what CDs are as times continue to change.
In our dynamic world of general music education, we have the opportunity through technology to reach out and collaborate with teachers across the country and across disciplines on best teaching practices. The NAfME Council for General Music Education and I encourage you to reach out to your colleague to ask him or her how they approach teaching students about a particular concept or how to integrate a new classroom management strategy. Arrange an opportunity for your students to perform virtually for another class in another state. If you live in an urban school district, maybe reach out to a rural general music teacher and invite him/her up to an in-service in your school district. If you live in a rural school district, invite an urban music teacher to your school to come observe a performance or classroom activity. Visit the new NAfME Amplify Community and share your story about how you provided differentiated instruction for your students so all students could achieve mastery of grade-level music standards. There are so many ways we can collaborate about best practices for the general music classroom in our ever-changing world; we just have to be willing to reach out and take the opportunity.