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Main Topic: Incorporating Technology in the Classroom

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Main Topic: Incorporating Technology in the Classroom

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Incorporating technology is imperative in order to stay with it in the education world where one to one ratios are increasing and principals are having higher expectations to use these technologies. A favorite of mine is Pear Deck for a more lecture based classroom setting. This technology helps keep the students actively participating and would be useful in a music classroom when going over theory based skills. I also like the Plickers app to be able to have students having a personalized QR code with different answer options on oh they turn it. I would use this as a beginning of the class activity that has some musically relevant question on the board and the students will have their QR code on their folders and check in for attendance by having that be scanned.

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Main Topic: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 

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Main Topic: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 

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This is something that I am becoming more and more aware of in the choral education setting. As we come closer to the holidays (holidays being centered around Christian beliefs) music departments will fall into doing only Christmas piece or have one song that is just about winter and saying that it is not exclusionary. I can only imagine a student growing up in any other religious belief only having Christmas music to sing being not completely interested and invested in the music that they are singing. Being aware to the different cultures and backgrounds that are in your classroom should effect the musical literature that you are picking for your students to perform. This will teach the choir as a whole about other customs and ideologies that they may not have known about, let everyone be actively invested in the music that is being made, and also celebrating what makes us all different.

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Main Topic: Teaching Students with IEP's

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Main Topic: Teaching Students with IEP's

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Even though we did not go as much into this as we will in teaching the exceptional child. It was important for us to go over how different needs from students will require us to teach differently and in multiple ways. It is also good to remember that teaching these new ways will also help students without IEP's grasp the material more completely.

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Main topic: Building Community in the classroom

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Main topic: Building Community in the classroom

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In this class we have brought up the impertinence of creating a community within the classroom as well as in the school. The main point of putting community first is the fact that students can not learn to their fullest potential if they do not feel welcome. This is very true in the choral setting because these students voices are unique, individual, and not fully developed. These students are going to crack, go flat, go sharp, sing a wrong pitch and have bad tone at some point of every rehearsal. Singing everyday and knowing that people are going to hear them mess up like that is very vulnerable so it is absolutely imperative that as a community, the choir feels a sense of unity, family, and comfort. In order to get better, students need to feel comfortable messing up because if there is no risk taking, then as the choir director, I will not be able to fix what is wrong.

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This article deals with the School District that I grew up in. It is a good reminder that even though this was years ago, there is still bullying and issues with depression and lack of community in schools. It is our job as teachers to create an environment that all are accepted and welcome. This responsibility is even more relevant for music teachers that will be with the same group of kids for their whole high school career in most cases. By really knowing these students, it is our job to teach, nurture, and notice when thinks are off with the students and reach out to them in those times so they know they are cared for.

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To mark MinnPost's 10th anniversary, our writers and editors have dug into the archives to highlight stories that have stuck with them over the years, a series we're calling MinnPost 10 at 10.

Today, we hear from former education reporter Beth Hawkins about her 2011 coverage of the Anoka-Hennepin School District, where eight students had killed themselves over a two-year period:

In 2011, I wrote a story about the wave of student suicides that had swept through the Anoka-Hennepin School District, where an overwhelming number of adults in schools believed that the "no-promo-homo" policy adopted by the school board meant that they could not intervene in the bullying or harassment of students for their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

I defy you to read this recent story and not have some feelings about the fact that I am still writing about adult LGBT bullying in the northern suburban school system. That's six-plus years and how many dead teens later?

I have kids around the ages of some of the teens depicted or quoted in this story. The minutia of reporting this piece haunts me to this day. One of the suicide victims was 12, for instance. I had a 12-year-old that year. She took off the new clothes her mother had just bought her before lying down in the bathtub with a shotgun. What a mix of childlike respect for the rules - my son totally would have done the same - and the kind of profound hopelessness we don't want to associate with children.

I have a vivid memory of finally getting one of the teens who sued the district - just got on the internet and got herself a couple of big-name public interest law firms, NBD - to sit down with me. She'd slept through my efforts to pick her up at her family's rundown little split-level several days running before I banged loud enough to wake her.

We went to Perkins and she had chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, chocolate syrup AND regular syrup. Blue hair akimbo and lint stuck to her sugary fingers, she explained very calmly to me that the problem with the district brass' handling of her complaint was that they wanted her to hide, but she knew the best way to combat the bullies was to be out. And to know enough about LGBT history and culture to be proud about it.

MinnPost photo by Andrew Wallmeyer

Again, that juxtaposition of the impossibly youthful and the unbelievably worldly.

This story was one of the first to take more than a cursory look at the problem, and MinnPost made sure it was read far and wide. I don't know whether its publication played a part, but things moved swiftly after that to a technical resolution, a settlement of the teens' lawsuit.

Like so many moments I shared with the incredibly talented MinnPost staff over the years, this story made me a better reporter and writer, a better parent and a better person. I brought all of my outrage, grief and astonishment - parental, personal and political - at the situation and at the kids' courage in confronting it to the task of putting this story together.

A lesser set of editors would have suggested I tamp down my feelings. MinnPost's told me to tap them.

Rarely has a civic-minded little publication put so many committed people in one place and given them the freedom to focus entirely on the journalism. And never has a loyal cadre of readers stepped up and responded so enthusiastically - or been so involved with their news and its carriers.

It was a hell of a ride, and it was my privilege to be part it.

Hawkins, who wrote for MinnPost from 2007 to 2015, is currently a senior writer and national correspondent for The 74, a nonpartisan news site focused on education in America. She has won numerous national and regional awards, including recognition from the Education Writers Association and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists. Her work has appeared in More, Mother Jones, the Atlantic, U.S. News & World Report, Edutopia, EducationNext, the Hechinger Report and numerous other outlets.

* * *

From day one, MinnPost's nonprofit newsroom has depended on support from readers. These tax-deductible donations have been instrumental in MinnPost's growth and success.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we're asking loyal readers to continue making MinnPost possible with a member contribution. These contributions, in any amount, are vital to our work.
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MinnPost 10 at 10: Beth Hawkins looks back at covering student suicides in Anoka-Hennepin schools

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To mark MinnPost's 10th anniversary, our writers and editors have dug into the archives to highlight stories that have stuck with them over the years, a series we're calling MinnPost 10 at 10.

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This picture is pretty funny but also relevant to what we have talked about in our class about dealing with parents. We as educators will often get the "that does not sound like my kid at all" speech from parents. Whats hard about this is that the parents are your backbone in getting students to behave in your class. If there are no repercussions at home and the parents are not on your side, then the behavior will not likely change.

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This is a funny meme about vocal technique. When singing, it is important to create lift and space in order to have a mature tone. To achieve this lift, you raise the soft palate like you would while yawning.