To be a music maker is to be a community maker. Music brings communities together to celebrate, mourn, protest, think, and even not think. Musikng allows us to experience the intentionality of being alive together.
As a music educator, I am most passionate about embedding opportunities for what Maslow describes in Hierarchy of Needs as “Love & Belonging” throughout all my lessons. Designing units of study, and physical spaces based on belonging, connection and love allows my students a chance self actualization and it makes their music making way better. Maslow said it and I see it come alive year after year that I am in the classroom with youth.
Here are two essential ways in which I build community in the classroom
1. Set up in a circle and jam!
The easiest way to build community in a classroom is to set up in a circle and start a beat. It does not matter if it is steady or not, or even if you have instruments or not. It is more important than every member of the community feels heard and seen for what they already have to offer to the community, than whether they can play a “good beat”. There is a kind of magic that happens when everyone partakes in this ancient tradition of being together in rhythm and connecting with each other in a circle. I wish for every single one of my students to experience that magic. Once we’ve established a sense of community, we can start working on whatever skills/concepts we want. I have used this methodology for introducing my students to Ewe drumming from Ghana, for learning popular songs in my beginner mixed instrument ensembles, and even for teaching kindergartners how to find their singing voices. Learning how to play a polyrhythm or sing in tune are finite skills. Learning how to play polyrhythms and sing in tune as an artistic community gives us infinite possibilities.
2. Peer-To-Peer Coaching
How can you help your comrade do their job better? (Read: what do friends do for each other?) Open ended questions allow me to guide the experience of learning for my students, while holding space for them to learn from each other. During a lesson I could just say “Look at each other” and they will or they won’t. However, having students engage in dialogue about it, requires them to be in community about helping each other. In addition, learning what students view and value as “help” and “friendship”, teaches us how to be better teach to them. To set them up for success, we need to model the skills and the procedures of how to engage in peer to peer coaching, thinking critically, being kind, open minded, and giving specific feedback. We also need to remember to always keeping the safety of the community above anything else.
Peer to peer coaching and modeling are invaluable tools in education because they puts the teaching and learning on the hands of the learners. I encourage you to explore these possibilities!