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http://www.swnewsmedia.com/lakeshore_weekly/news/election/of-candidates-won-seats-on-hopkins-school-board/article_1ef9ac8b-9299-5515-ad0c-16b2d04a6457.html

This is an article about the recent school board election in Hopkins, Minnesota. The board elected their first Somali-American official to their board by a landslide and thousands of students suddenly saw themselves being at a level where they can finally have their voice heard. In a country where they've been told to keep quite and continuously get pushed down, they finally have a small say on something that hits very close to home. Fartun Ahmed has given the somali children of Hopkins hope in what may come for them in their future education.

Relating this back to previous topics, I strongly see cultural relevance coming through. Even though it's not curriculum based, having this sort of cultural representation at such a high level means so much for these students of Fartune's similar background. They finally have someone like them to help them reach their concerns and any misjudgments they might be facing in their day-to-day education. Staying relevant has never been more crucial for these students and they finally saw that only a few short weeks ago.

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The biggest reason I choose this image is because of how much it's accurate to our current education system. We've become such a "cookie cutter" system and it's not working for students these days. Each student learns in a different way and as future teachers we need to learn that. This can be done through quite a few methods but the biggest and most prominent of these is Differentiated education (discussed below). Using this we can help each and everyone of our students, no matter what skill level they may be at in our subject areas. Being able to be flexible is becoming a much more crucial skill for teachers in modern times that it's essential we know how to do so.

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Although these weren't one specific subject we talked about in class on one specific day it was extremely impactful in how I thought about encounters with students and others. Each situation was very specific but had a world of solutions we could use to solve the situations. In total we were given 6 different situations that ranged from racism, homophobia, and even just a student who didn't have very good personal hygiene.

Each one really pushed us to think outside of the box for our solution. Sometimes they would line up with what others would think but for the most part, each person thought of a different solution on how they would handle each and every moment. It was extremely useful because each of them was a real life situation that has happened. Seeing how different people would solve the issues and then hearing how it was actually solved was always super insightful about these kinds of matters.

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Essential Questions was so useful! It was so good to learn how to ask a good solid question and how to make sure that the class is able to discuss it.

At first I kind of understood that good quality questions had to be something that you could discuss and didn't just have a straight forward answer (although those are great for informal assessments). However, I didn't really understood what went into a complete and solid essential question.

Each one needs to revolve around the subject you're talking about and needs to be one that can be asked at the end of the class so that your students can have a good quality conversation about that topic. Some supplemental questions might be needed depending on how difficult the question might be but it should be understandable enough to lead to discussion.

Basically how I think of an essential question is one that draws inspiration from the subject matter and leaves the class in thought and is super open ended. If I have to think seriously for an answer and can think of multiple different answers, then the question would probably be considered and Essential Question. It also needs to include vocabulary from the unit/lessons your teaching to really help guide the students to what they need to be thinking about.

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There are two reasons as to why I choose this meme. Number 1) It's hilarious. Number 2) It's exactly how you feel once a concert or program is finished with. You've performed beautiful music for an audience but you didn't get there without a few bumps in the road. You need to be able to be willing to work through the difficult matters that will happen in your class and be able to push past the minor (and major) blocks that will come. This can be related back, slightly, the differentiated teaching method by needing that flexibility and being able to work with every student to make sure that each kid understands what it is they need to be learning. at the end of the semester you will get to where you need to be but sometimes the road getting there can be quite difficult.

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With everything in our world today, it is becoming more and more crucial to have more culturally relevant teaching styles. Especially in music education.

Our subject matter is very white. We almost always perform whole concerts with strictly white composers and very little composers of other ethnicities or even LGBTQIA+ composers. Before we covered this topic, I was not even aware of how little students of color are represented in music. Our reading on this subject by Kate R. Fitzpatrick especially brought this to light. It was so incredible eye opening to see that our classrooms have such little diversity because of how music is perceived by communities that aren't white people. As a future music educator I really want to try and make it a point to have composers of different racial/other groups represented in my classroom. simply to show that music isn't a "white" thing.

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A big topic in Education these days is differentiated education. This essentially boils down to making sure that your curriculum can be adjusted and used for students at various levels of learning in your classroom.

With the varieties of learning that go on in our classroom differentiated education is so crucial. Before we talked about it in class I had no clue this idea even existed. However, through talking about it I have quickly come to realize how important it is for students that we are going to have in our classroom. Everyone learns at different levels and by using differentiated education, a teacher can really help to cater to students at various or even all the different levels their students are at. A great article to read for music educators for an idea of how this works is Stephanie Standerfer's "Differentiation in the Music Classroom". It discusses the differentiation in the varieties of music classrooms and how you can use different techniques to help your students understand your material and set them up to understand everything beyond that.