Pressing the Reset Button

by Stacy Harris CMEA Music Supervisors Representative

As I write this article in early June, most of us are currently wrapping up our school year. Some are already on break for summer and the rest of us will be there by the time this issue is published. To call these last 15 months difficult would be an understatement. PreCOVID, most of us experienced difficult years scattered throughout our careers. Looking in the rear view mirror now, many of us may even laugh a little at what we called “difficult” prior to March of 2020. As we move further and further through the pandemic and watch as things around us begin to shift back closer to what we might label as “normal,” we are wrestling with some challenging questions:

• What does a return to “normal” mean for my program that may have been highly impacted this last year? • What are the barriers to that return? • What about the previous “normal” was not really working in the first place? • What was born out of necessity this last year that can continue to truly benefit students and teachers?

And the most crucial question of all:

• What do my students need moving forward and how will my program meet that need?

As we all wrestle with these questions and more, I’d like to invite us all to take this moment to consider pressing the reset button. The last 15 months have been a practice in adapting at a moment’s notice. As a music supervisor, I have created and recreated the instructional program for our elementary instrumental and general music teachers more times than I can count at this point. In this type of fast-paced, transitional environment, we are creatively and quickly developing solutions to problems of the moment. As soon as each problem is ironed out in this type of environment, it is replaced by a new one. While the work that music educators across the state and nation did this year was incredible, most of our solutions were short-term in an effort to cobble together anything we could for our students in the midst of constant change and extreme limitations.

In this moment of preparing for a “return,” there is an opportunity to rethink what we do and why we do it lying in front of us that we may not collectively see again in our careers. How much of what you did in your position pre-COVID was done that way because that was the way it had always been done? Who or what was at the center of the decisions about what would be taught, how it would be taught, and why it was taught? Was it the students? Was it some other stakeholder group? Was it your singular vision for the program? This is a time for us to take a collective breath and slow down for the first time in over a year. It is a time to pause and ask ourselves questions that will allow us to really consider why we do what we do and how we can transform that work to better serve students. If we do not take this opportunity to reflect, I imagine many of us will jump into next school year and quickly be hijacked by the fast-paced environment that school always is and fall back into old, comfortable habits. While those old habits will undoubtedly lead to positive results in many ways, they will also limit our ability to seize this opportunity for transformative change in music education.

Here are a few of the positives that came from this last year and some of the points I will be reflecting on this summer. My goal is to determine how best to not only keep the progress my team and I made in these areas but to purposefully expand on them and consider how they can drive our continued growth as a team.

Technology Literacy for Staff and Opportunities for Students

This is obviously one of the easiest positives to call out from the last year. While technology was already being used masterfully in some music classrooms pre-COVID, in other classrooms it was absent. The disparity between our most tech-literate staff members and those that struggled with tech was astonishing. We would never have seen the massive leap in tech literacy amongst teachers that we did this last year without distance learning and, while so much of what we do as music teachers can be done artfully without technology, a new world has been opened up for us in how we can engage students in music-making through technology. We will not only benefit by continuing to use many of the tech resources we embraced out of necessity this year but I am hopeful that we will continue looking for ways to expand opportunities and access to all students as well as our own ideas about what music education

can be. Some of the questions I am asking as I reflect in this area are: What tech tools benefited teachers in lesson delivery and collaboration that will continue to be useful in person? What tools not only supported student growth through distance learning but expanded the ways that students could interact with and create music as well as their ability to take ownership of their own learning? What tools created opportunities for students to engage in music education who previously may not have had access to a formal music education? These are just some of the questions that will help to guide our planning and our discussions in regards to the role technology will play in our music programs in the future and how we can better serve our students through its use.

Collaboration and Resource Sharing

Music teachers are most often in positions in which they are “Islands of One.” We become comfortable being the only person on our campus that does what we do. While this can create space for autonomy in how we develop our programs, it can also lead to isolation, overwhelm, and burn-out. In addition, when we are working in isolation, our vision can become myopic and stagnant and it can be difficult to keep our minds open to being life-long learners who continue to grow in our practice. Humans are social creatures. We are meant to work in community to thrive. Easily, the most inspirational thing I have seen over the last year has been the incredible support my teachers have been to each other and the increased level of collaboration amongst our team and across the music community as a whole. Initially, that ability to collaborate more frequently than ever before (thank you, technology) served mostly as a life-line. It allowed us to connect when we were in isolation and to help each other manage the stress of the world at the time. As time has gone on, a real shift has happened in that collaboration that is now focused on strategy and resource sharing, developing common units of instruction, and discussing best practices for either the digital or in-person environment. The forced distance and isolation of COVID has ironically created bonds between teachers who are now closer than they ever were when we were in person, living on our islands.

Student-Focused Instruction

I am going to paint with a broad brush for a moment. PreCOVID, some of what we have called “music education,” especially at the secondary level, could have accurately been called “rehearsal and performance education.” To borrow a phrase from our CMEA President-Elect, Anne Fennell, “sometimes music ensembles (not all) can be more accurately described as ensembles of compliance rather than of the creativity we tout as a benefit of music education.” With distance learning and the limitations on playing wind instruments and singing in-person, we had to stretch well outside of our comfort zones to create meaningful connections with our students through music. What we began to see as a result of the pandemic sidelining performance opportunities was teachers beginning to look at their roles in a new way. Without the opportunity to make music together in ensembles and for performance to be center-stage, what other ways were available to us to make space for student creativity? Alongside a timely focus on Social Emotional Learning, these adaptations created some wonderfully student-centered environments. Without the stress of the next competition, the massive loads of paperwork, and everything else that goes along with a thriving performance-driven program, students were front and center in instruction. The return of our performance ensembles is going to be a huge benefit to many of our students after the tough year they have been through and the opportunity to make music in-person is going to be healing for all of us. My hope is that, as we see our performing ensembles begin to take the stage again, our students will continue to be center-stage and that their needs and what truly benefits them as musicians and as humans will be at the forefront of every decision we make.

As you pause this summer and consider hitting that reset button, I’d like to close this out with a focus on three of the questions I posed at the beginning of this article:

• What about the previous “normal” was not really working in the first place? • What was born out of necessity this last year that can continue to truly benefit students and teachers? • What do my students need moving forward and how will my program meet that need?

As we move toward what will hopefully be a return to at least some level of normalcy this Fall, I hope these questions encourage you to consider what parts of “normal” you might be done with and what possibilities might lie in front of you and your students.

Introducing New Section Presidents Beginning Their Term July 1st

Patrick Neff

Capitol Section

Michael Tackett

Central Section