Keith’s expertise in music and in culturally relevant pedagogy, gained through GDS professional development diversity training,* enriches the students’ educational experience. He focuses on encouraging students to sing in ways that produce a fuller, richer sound. He also adds diverse voices into the standard repertoire, including female composers, Black poets, and many more. In selecting pieces, Keith looks for quality text and music that speaks directly to students. In summer 2021, Keith selected a beautiful arrangement of Langston Hughes’s “Hold Fast to Dreams,” one of those rare pieces that manages to appeal immediately to children and also nourish them musically. Music colleague John Barnes explained that often, musical pieces are either like craveable candy—appealing but with little learning value—or like healthful vegetables, helping to develop musical tastes, challenge skills, and introduce new perspectives. In Rappahannock County, as at GDS, Keith serves up balanced musical meals. He has also been able to share GDS’s resources, including xylophones—to the delight of the students—and musical scores for use during his summer course. Keith said, “The program reinforces how fortunate we are at GDS,” where students participate in the arts multiple times per week and their teachers have access to the best pedagogical materials. The summer choral program also gives back to GDS. It has afforded Keith the opportunity to “test-drive” many of the new pieces he has in mind for the GDS choral program and fine-tune his teaching approach. Despite the lost year in 2020, this year’s 36 singers performed for more than 200 community members during the culminating concert, and Keith is working to bring back as mentors students who have now aged out. The summer program is a part of the Headwaters Foundation, a nonprofit seeking to foster cooperative spirit and educational excellence.
Elevating Skills
For four weeks in summer 2021, John Barnes reunited with music teachers across the country during what he called “that magical month in July,” when, for a brief period, it seemed as though the pandemic was coming to a close. In two-week sessions, he taught the recorder portion of Orff Schulwerk certification courses for music teachers who came together at George Mason University and at Lakeland University in Wisconsin. Orff Schulwerk is the philosophically aligned, developmentally appropriate approach to music instruction embraced by GDS, and all LMS music teachers are Orff certified. The approach seeks an integrated approach to the arts; celebrates voice and choice for students; and prioritizes fluid improvisation between dance, music, and theatrical disciplines. Certification encompasses courses in basic pedagogy, performance skills, area-specific pedagogy, and more. Though each of the three in-depth certification levels takes a summer to complete, some GDS teachers have gone beyond the three levels and now teach or present at American Orff Schulwerk Association (AOSA) conferences. Keith, for example, has taught supplemental courses for teachers honing their craft in creative choral programming and will present at the AOSA national conference this year.
GEORGETOWN DAYS FALL/WINTER 2021—22
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