Knowledge

1. ■The teacher understands cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects of the functions of music.
   

2. ■The teacher is aware of the audience-performer-composer interaction.
   

Performance

1. ■The teacher articulates a philosophy of music education.
   

2. ■The teacher provides musical experiences that enhance students’ intellectual, personal, emotional, social, and career development.
   

3. ■The teacher acknowledges the unique musical contributions of cultural diversity.
   

Reflection/Elaboration on Standard

    In order to have a successful school, the teaching of students cannot be contained in the building.  The community that the students live in will affect their emotions, opinions, and aptitude for learning.  This is especially true in music education, where students often have the choice in participation and value.  This choice may be influenced by their family, friends, neighbors, church, and other aspects of the community life.  Therefore, as music educators it is important to understand that the more that the community is involved in and believes in the music education program, the more successful the program will be.  This is all about advocacy to that community.  Not only is it important that the community believes that the music program is beneficial to their students on the well-known basis of academia, but there should be an understanding of the development of students in the music program in other aspects.  This includes personally, emotionally, and socially.  The teacher should advocate a program that develops students in a humanistic way that goes beyond the normal classroom benefits for students.  It is the advocacy of the betterment of self through music that will allow the teacher to grow their program.

    While in college, I have learned a lot about music advocacy.  Everyday I hear of programs fighting to stay alive under attempted budget cuts, even full program cuts, suggested by school boards.  In many situations, the safety of the music program is directly impacted by the community members attending school board meetings and arguing for the benefits of the program to the students and the community as a whole.  As a future educator, a large portion of my time in college has been spent being asked the question “Why music?” and being expected to formulate a response.  The question starts with why I wanted to teach music, but then beyond that, why should students learn music and why is music education so vitally important.  Nationally, you hear study after study about the increase in intellectual abilities with those students who participate in music.  My belief has grown beyond this, and in my opinion, for music education to be of true value, the teacher must continue to diversify the reasons, until it seems that the community would lose something of value.  One of the most important aspects that I have learned to appreciate and would be quick to advocate is how humanistic and personal music is.  In a world where things have become so cookie-cutter and robotic, it is vital to our development as human beings to understand the human traits that music brings.  From emotional development and growth to their personal skills and self-worth, students grow as people through music.  My philosophy of music education is my personal music advocacy of what I believe music should be for the student.

    When in the field, it will be important to advocate for music through actions and involvement.  This means students need to perform and experience music and community members need to be involved in that process.  Whether they attend a concert, a football game, or simply get to sit in on rehearsal, community members need to have a first-hand account of what music means to the community at large.  As an educator, I will work to create more opportunities, such as a band showcase, to expose community members to this experience, especially the parents.  This will ensure that the value of music education is not lost.

Artifacts

    My first example of community involvement is a set of booster bylaws.  These bylaws were written as a part of a group project.  The bylaws are for a high school band booster program.  As a part of getting the community involved, this booster club is open not only to parents, but also to alumni, community members, and businesses.  This is an important way to allow everyone to become a part of the band in some way.  The bylaws clearly outline how the boosters help the band and how they are run.  When involving the community, it is important that all of this is clearly stated so that there are no questions and things will run smoothly.

    While writing these bylaws, I found that there is a lot to cover.  From officers, to participation, to meetings, the list seems endless.  This made me realize that as a teacher, interacting with the community requires a lot of planning and a solid foundation to work on.  The hopes are that the booster club can help to funnel some of this community involvement so that the booster officers can take some of this load off of the teacher’s shoulders.  Even so, it is important that the teacher is interacting with the community and bringing the community into the band as well as the band into the community in order to foster a strong bond between the two.

    My second example is a brochure advertising instrument night for the elementary students.  This brochure was originally made when my elementary music education class helped organize and run Westmoreland’s instrument night.  This brochure was meant to bring in all members of the school that are eligible to participate in music to try out instruments and consider joining band.  Too often the only ones who join band are the select few whose parents were in music in school or the kids who show a high music potential in their elementary general music classes.  However, in order to involve the entire community in the program, all students should have the opportunity and be interested in participating.  The larger the ensemble and wider the participation, the greater the community support.

    When making this brochure, I worked to advocate for why music is important as well as make it interesting for the young students.  With community, often times the way to draw them in is to make them believe that the students are getting something of quality.  Therefore, my job as an educator is to firmly believe that there is quality in music education for everyone and to be well-versed in how to model this for the community.