Parents and guardians play a vital role in their child's musical journey.
Supporting music education at home can be fun and easy. A child should be encouraged to play instruments, learn music that they enjoy, experience live music, and engage in casual music listening. Simple encouragement of music listening at home or within the community can spark the growing child's interest in learning more about music in general while leaving a life-long impact on that child’s musical experiences.
The relationship between young children & music.
Many parents are drawn to start some type of musical experience for their child before elementary school and the musical journey can begin when a child is very young. The earlier a student is exposed to music, the more likely they are to develop a positive relationship with music. A young child’s musical journey can be as simple as listening to music with a parent on car rides or dancing to songs in the kitchen, it does not always have to be formal instruction or a private class. Any type of early involvement will jump-start the child’s musical ear and interest in music which may translate into a richer music education in the long run.
Resources for Parents/Guardians
Below are some resources that relate to music education for families. Enjoy!
Getting Kids to Practice
"How do you encourage your kid to practice with a smile instead of a scream? ...The trick is that self-motivated discipline isn't exactly first nature for most kids, so it's up to families to help create positive, engaging and fun ways to practice as a path towards self-motivation."
Musical Explorers
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Musical-Explorers
"Musical Explorers connects students in grades K–2 to rich and diverse musical communities as they build fundamental music skills through listening, singing, and moving to songs from all over the world. Each program culminates in an interactive concert experience, during which students celebrate what they’ve learned by singing and dancing along with their new favorite artists."
Know Better Do Better Project
https://www.knowbetterdobetterproject.com
"The Know Better Do Better Project seeks to encourage conversation and awareness of songs that have played a role in sustaining systemic racism, and the writing of new alternative songs. We believe that by facing our music history, creating new songs, and making informed decisions about the songs we choose to sing, we amplify the positive power of music to shape a more just and inclusive world."
10 Ways To Check Your Musical Bias
https://www.nateholdermusic.com/post/10-ways-to-check-your-musical-bias
"When we talk about removing bias' and the broader idea of decolonisation, we are talking about a change of mindset. It's breaking down the ideas of tokenism, representation and diversity, and understanding how our thoughts and environments have impacted our teaching and learning behaviours. "
Chrome Music Lab
musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/
"Chrome Music Lab is a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments."
The Kennedy Center Teaching Artists
"Teaching artists introduce us to artforms, activities, and exercises that open up our minds, our bodies, and the ways we interact with the people and world around us."
Scaffolded Antiracist Resources
"This is a working document for scaffolding anti-racism resources. The goal is to facilitate growth for white folks to become allies, and eventually accomplices for anti-racist work. These resources have been ordered in an attempt to make them more accessible. We will continue to add resources."
How to Talk about Differences
https://themighty.com/2015/04/what-to-do-when-kids-point-at-someone-in-public/
"Children are naturally curious and excited when they discover something or someone new. As parents, our job is to demonstrate to our children what empathy, compassion, friendship, and diversity looks like. Shushing is shame-inducing, not inclusion-promoting."
Embrace Race
"EmbraceRace was founded in early 2016 by two parents who set out to create the community and gather the resources they needed (need!) to meet the challenges faced by those raising children in a world where race matters."
Using Books to Talk About Race
https://blog.peps.org/2018/01/15/how-to-use-books-to-talk-about-race/
"Story time is a great time to teach your kids to be noticers. And noticing is half the battle. Western literature has a long history of racism. This has taken two forms. The soft racism of erasure and the hard racism damaging depictions of people of color."
Talking about Gender Identity
"So, you’re a progressive parent, right? Sure you are. You’re teaching your children that all cultures and religions and skin colors are made equal. You’ve explained that some kids at school may have two mommies and some may have two daddies, and that when your children grow up, they can marry anyone they want to. “Love is love,” you say to them."
More Resources and More Topics
"Do you want to talk to your young child about issues of social justice, but don’t know how? You’re not alone—most adults find topics like race, gender, and class difficult to talk about with children. But if we don’t find ways to talk about it, children will learn whatever they can glean from unspoken messages, and that doesn’t often work out very well. The staff at CCS is always available to help you find strategies. Also, you may find some of the resources below useful."
Miss Kelly's Teachers Pay Teachers Store
teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Sunflower-Sings
Find many free resources, worksheets, games and MORE! Prices are low and I am happy to give friends and family discounts.
Music and Diversity (by Miss Kelly)
https://sites.google.com/view/musicanddiversity/home
“How can general music educators promote the celebration of cultural diversity? Music is heavily intertwined with culture, and identity. When children are exposed to diverse music, it opens up a pathway to bridge cultures peacefully and can lead to the celebration of our differences. This is one reason why general music educators must deeply consider the part we play in shaping the next generation. Our teaching practices, repertoire selections and personal biases impact our student’s view on cultural diversity."
Decolonizing the Music Room
https://decolonizingthemusicroom.com/
"Our work means centering BBIA (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian) voices, knowledge, and experiences to challenge the historical dominance of white Western European and American music, narratives, and practices that has resulted in minimization and erasure throughout our field. There is no end point of being "decolonized," only constant learning, reflecting and growing."
Know Better Do Better Project
https://www.knowbetterdobetterproject.com
"The Know Better Do Better Project seeks to encourage conversation and awareness of songs that have played a role in sustaining systemic racism, and the writing of new alternative songs. We believe that by facing our music history, creating new songs, and making informed decisions about the songs we choose to sing, we amplify the positive power of music to shape a more just and inclusive world."
Songs with a Questionable Past
"Our work means centering BBIA (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian) voices, knowledge, and experiences to challenge the historical dominance of white Western European and American music, narratives, and practices that has resulted in minimization and erasure throughout our field. There is no end point of being "decolonized," only constant learning, reflecting and growing."
Songs to be Reconsidered
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oDJ9lZD4mNkWORsBf_6pPkMQczxoTz2YZYI-EtKGRoY/edit#gid=0
List of Pieces to Be Reconsidered or Removed, a Google doc compiled by Kelsey Gamza. Kelsey writes, "It is by no means exhaustive nor academically reviewed. It is simply a starting place to discuss the presence of minstrelsy in music education." The list includes choral, concert band, marching band, orchestral, and other ensemble works that have ties to minstrel shows.
Children's Music Network
"We meet and stay in touch to share songs and ideas about children's music, to inspire each other about the empowering ways adults and young people can communicate through music, and to be a positive catalyst for education and community-building through music."
Anti-Racism Music Resources
"On this page, you’ll find resources that have been used and recommended by our faculty, staff, and students in anti-racism work, specifically in music pedagogy and performance. This list is not exhaustive and will continue to be updated regularly. We acknowledge that anti-racism work must be an ongoing and intentional effort, and we are striving to make systemic changes that will last beyond the tenure of any individual currently in the department."
Blurring the Binary
"This website was created for any music educator looking to get an idea of how best to instruct a transgender student in their music classroom. The information here is free, a combination of research-grounded material and experiences from my own life as an educator, musician, LGBTQ+ advocate, and transgender woman."
Diverse and Inclusive Books for the Music Room
https://www.facebook.com/groups/607383996553141/
"This group was created to help elementary music teachers share children's literature with one another that features diverse characters and themes. Please feel free to post pictures of book covers and tell the group a little about the book and how you are using it in your classroom."
Multicultural Book List for the Music Classroom
"Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children's book publisher in the United States. We are your diversity source." The link above will bring up books under the category of "Music."