​Music education should provide students with meaningful experiences, life long skills, community, and an outlet of expression. It is my job as a teacher to work effectively with a diverse set of learners and facilitate opportunities for growth, discussion, learning, and experiences to allow students to leave my classroom a more functional and contributing member to society. 
One of the main roles of the teacher is to build relationships. Fostering professional and positive student-teacher relationships leads to increased student engagement and the formation of a community. By promoting positive attitudes of responsibility and pride, it is more likely more students will begin to share these values. As a conductor, preparing for rehearsals by practicing conducting and thorough score analysis, providing meaningful lessons that connect to the music they are learning, programming diverse and fun music, and facilitating exciting musical experiences, students will enjoy my class more and invest more into their learning. Scale exercises, chorales, breathing gyms, and discussions all are some activities that offer opportunities to connect the concepts to the curriculum. 

Picking diverse music of different eras, styles, and composers results in the class feeling more represented and are exposed to the world outside of Missouri. Providing students with opportunities to go to marching competitions, honor bands, festivals, parades, and more unique performances, more interest and excitement is generated within the program (Cavaretta, 2024). Also, sharing concerts allows students to see other bands and learn from their successes and failures as well as potentially making new connections. Performing in local venues can also provide students with more life-applicable experiences such as performing at the local grill.  The standard of excellence should also be a prominent idea while programming, teaching, and goal setting in an effort to achieve the goal of becoming one's best self. Explaining this idea to students and having occasional class discussions about what this looks like, how it applies to music, how to apply outside of the classroom, and enforcing this through methodical teaching practices and culture building will help create a successful program (Coldwell & Goolsby, 1992). The standard, or mission, of the class should be created in cooperation with the students in the class. This will allow them to be more invested when living up to this standard. The standard should be in relation to the classroom expectations of respect of people, the craft, and facilities as well as the performance standard of performing to their absolute best ability. Students should be given opportunities to lead and take responsibility for their learning. By offering student leadership roles and fostering those with camps to enhance these skills, you will see more cooperation and investment into the program as a whole (Towner, 2024). 

Through a safe and supportive classroom environment, students will be more invested in their community and more comfortable to receive, understand, and make meaning of the content. Safety in my classroom would include being safe to express themselves, make mistakes, and learn. By having clear rules, expectations, and procedures, students are able to find structure in the day-to-day class feeling comfortable to receive and understand the content. As a teacher, it is my job to make sure students are respectful to each other and that I provide respect to all students regardless of ability level. One of the smallest and more important things to me is to celebrate successes inside and outside of the classroom. Congratulating students on making honor rolls, going to state in any organization that begins with an ‘F’, or making the game winning shot in last night’s basketball game on top of giving sincere and specific positive feedback when they perform well shows you, as the teacher, care about their achievements and success. This care usually is reciprocated in the work students put back into the program.    

With many diverse learners, one of my top priorities is to include learning strategies featuring kinesthetic, aural, and visual lessons. By engaging multiple parts of the brain through these activities (motor cortex, cerebellum, visual cortex, etc.), students in my class are able to grow their understanding of music and be more engaged in the classroom. Exercises for auditory learners in my class can include aural instruction, singing (often in time), discussion, and modelling. Visual learners often get more out of watching the conductor, reading fingering charts/instruction, and various warm-up exercises.  For kinesthetic learners, clapping and counting while tapping their feet is a featured activity in all grade levels amongst many others activities. 

Success is not always measured in a quality performance, but rather the quality of character my students present in and outside of the classroom. By doing my part in preparing valuable lessons, giving students responsibility for their learning, meeting students where they are, and holding students to a high standard, students can leave my class that much more prepared to face the world ahead of them.


Cavarretta, C. (2024). Designing lessons for student retention: How to keep students invested in music. Teaching Music: A Publication of the National Association for Music Education, 32(1), 26–27.

Colwell, R. J., & Goolsby, T. (1992). The teaching of instrumental music (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. Towner, C. (2025). Empowering students through evaluation, interpretation, and rehearsal techniques. Teaching Music: A Publication of the National Association for Music Education, 32(4), 25–27.