arts education

Actively Listening

Actively listening to our students is the most important teaching strategy there is. We can decenter ourselves as teachers when we focus on what our students have to say and share every day, in and outside of the music classroom.

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As educators, we can create necessary space in our music classrooms where students can be heard not only by us as educators, but also by their peer musicians. We cannot listen to our students only to respond to what they have to say; instead, we must listen simply to better understand our students and who they are.

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Actively listening to our students requires us to hear the silences of our students as well. Instead of adhering to traditional music education class structure where one music director, conductor, and/or teacher leads and students respond and only speak or share when instructed to do so, we can actively empower all students to share their voices.

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When students are encouraged to share who they are, we can then notice who is sharing their voice, ideas, and music in class and who is not.

It is important to note that speaking up and voicing our opinions is a Western societal norm.

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In many non-Western cultures — the global majority — using one’s voice to speak up is not the norm. Understanding this nuance does not account for all silences from students, but it can allow us to better recognize the importance of understanding each student’s positionalities and cultural norms.

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Questions we can ask our students to better understand them may include:

– What does using your voice mean?
– What is the value of your voice?
– When do you use your voice?
– Why do you use your voice?
– What does using your voice mean to you in the music classroom?

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When we notice students who are not speaking or sharing, we can build opportunities for peer sharing without being under the duress of the teacher’s gaze. As educators, we can also allow students to ask us about who we are — in and outside of our educator roles.

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The vulnerability in sharing who we are with each other is critical in building community in music education.

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Written and published in NAfME Teaching Music August 2022.

Affirmations for Teachers

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I am strong. I am capable of more than I think I am, because I have the strength within me. 

I am a listener. I listen to my students, families, and myself — fully, intently, and wholeheartedly. I listen to what is said aloud, and also to the silences of words unspoken.

I am an amplifier. I amplify my students in our world, not by “saving my students” nor by “being a voice for the voiceless”, but rather by holding microphones and megaphones to what my students share with me and each other. 

I am a leader. I lead my students and colleagues in my classroom and in our world. We lead together in education and beyond. 

I am a community builder. I build the community in and out of my classroom alongside my students. I am a part of the community that I help build each day. 

I am a lifelong learner. I learn each day from my students, my environment, and our experiences together, and we learn from each other as we grow together.

I am powerful. I can decenter myself as a teacher yet I will still have power as a teacher. It is my choice how I choose to use my power each day, in every moment. With my power, I can empower my students. 

I am a change maker. I create change in every moment I am with my students and my community. I create change with my students. I change with the changes I help make with my community.

I am important. Who I am is important. What I do is important. I am important. 

Music is dance AND dance is music!

“Music is dance AND dance is music!” exclaimed a first grader today. This declaration made me critically analyze and reflect on my own understanding of music and dance. Here are a few thoughts I have:

The forced division of music and dance into separate disciplines that do not interact is colonization at work. There is nothing that dictates the separation of the two aside from the colonization of our minds.

The lived intersection of music and dance is critical to multiple cultures of the global majority. The intersections vary for each culture – all of which should be amplified in the arts. 

Music and dance simply do not exist separately. In certain societies, no general terms exist for music and dance. 

Start your research at the indigenous music and dance of Papua New Guinea, Suyá, and Blackfoot peoples. This is a non-comprehensive list and simply a suggestion for a starting point.

The convergence of music and dance is not monolithic and cannot be applied universally to all cultures. Generalizing will only lead to erasure of individual voices in each culture.

Take critical care in understanding the nuances of music and dance in cultures of the global majority. We must always care deeply for BBIA peoples, their individual realities, and their collective experiences as practitioners of music and dance.

Upon reading and researching, decolonize your understanding of music and dance as separate art forms. Arrive at new understandings of music and dance as you continue to learn.

Authentically envision arts in your community to include the bold and unified intersection of music and dance. Once again, there is nothing that dictates us to uphold the status quo of white supremacy aside from the colonization of our minds.

Empower musicians and dancers to critique and redefine the narratives shared when music and dance come together. Actively critique and redefine the narratives as the convergence of music and dance renews itself through each musician, dancer, and arts practitioner. 

Then keep going. 

I “am”

It is a privilege that I only first experienced overt, daily racism from walking down the street because of my Asian skin due to COVID-19.

I (currently) do not walk outside with as much fear as I did in March, April, and early May. I am not completely stressed by the idea of running errands alone, nor do not feel like I need to have my two medium-sized dogs with me when I am out. The fear still exists, but I suppose not quite at the same level. Now I can, with privilege, negotiate what is more terrifying again: COVID-19 or anti-Asianness.

Don’t get me wrong – anti-Asian sentiment is still unfortunately alive and well in the “United” States. I am reminded by it whenever I see the “kung-flu” headline that seems to keep resurfacing in tweets, public statements, “news” reports, and presidential rallies. The videos of the Asian woman who was burned with acid outside her home in Brooklyn, NYC and the elderly Asian man being attacked in San Francisco will forever be stamped in my mind. And so many more. I will never unsee the horrors of this reality.

Then the end of May came with white womxn weaponizing Blackness, Black lives continuing to be killed on American screens with the world’s eyes watching, and very literally, NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE. 

As AAPI month came to an end, solidarity with Black folx was of necessary and immediate urgency. I almost laughed at all my own “issues” I’ve had the past few months because really, my personal confrontations with racism felt like uncooked pieces of rice in a larger bowl of atrocity noodle soup.

I am an Asian American music educator teaching Black and Brown children in New York City. I’ve founded the music program at my school. I’ve seen my children grow up. But most importantly, I will never truly understand what it means to be a Black and/or Brown person. Never. I also know that for some readers, racist judgements (#urban #titleone #poor #lowincome #badneighborhood #unsafe #achievementgap are a few) were made upon reading the first sentence because you are already trying to envision who I am, and who my kids are. I’m no savior. I refuse to be, and I will never be.

My elementary school students and I talked about the anti-Asian hate openly. My students didn’t understand why it was happening, but yet, some blamed the bats that people supposedly ate. As the only Asian-identifying educator in their schooling thus far, I constantly feel the responsibility to share who I am and my AAPI identity with my kids. “I do not eat bats”, I shared, “and not everything you see or read may be true”. 

After the killing of George Floyd amongst many others, my first 8:00AM Orchestra class online included the following questions and statements from students:

This was not a time for me to teach them ANYTHING about “Orchestra”. These statements didn’t just last for that hour. They came up again and again in the days and weeks afterwards, all the way through the end of the school year. I was and continue to be the learner because We Obtain Knowledge Everyday.