Culturally Responsive Music Education, Now More Than Ever
Vanessa L. Bond, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Music Education Rowan University Glassboro, New Jersey
It seems impossible to talk about any aspect of teaching right now without addressing the elephant in the room: the multi-ton weight of COVID-19 anxiety on our shoulders. We, as a broader society and more specifically as a community of music educators, are experiencing a collective trauma. Whether a preservice teacher entering a classroom in the teacher role for the first time or a veteran of 20 years, we are all novices in navigating what it means to teach during a pandemic. We must acknowledge the personal strain we face as educators. Because of this, I want to hold that acknowledgement in dialectic with also viewing this moment as an opportunity -- an opportunity for heightened awareness of our practices and our values. Most have had to rethink the status quo of the classroom. A virtual space has required new tools, new pedagogical strategies to foster engagement, and document achievement. Teaching in person is only possible within limited conditions of musicking, such as singing outdoors only, using bell covers and physical distancing, or pushing into classrooms on a cart. In a hybrid context, a teacher must negotiate multiple spaces and pedagogies. The pandemic has also heightened awareness of student anxiety and inequities in our systems that have been present long before. While at a distance, we have been brought closer to each other, in a sense, by entering students’ home spaces. We were not invited, but, by necessity, into their homes we go. More than ever, perhaps, we are made aware of students’ varied academic and social-emotional needs, and the systems that privilege some while oppressing others. More than ever, a responsive approach is needed in our classrooms. Culturally responsive education Culturally responsive teaching is a mindset. It is an approach to teaching that encompasses pedagogy, curTEMPO
riculum, climate -- all facets of working with students, families, and communities. Referenced in many ways, such as culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching, culturally sustaining pedagogy, I have (see Bond, 2017; Bond & Russell, 2019) and continue to use “culturally responsive education” as an umbrella term to refer to a commitment to student academic success by teaching to and through students’ strengths, the development of intercultural competence, and the raising of a critical consciousness about one’s field and our sociopolitical contexts1. As a framework that sees and validates the whole student, and acknowledges the potential conflict between students’ cultural lenses and the structures of our educational system, cultivating a responsive mindset can help us meet students’ needs in these challenging times and in our future. I offer the following strategies as an entry point to becoming more responsive as an educator. Explore identities and raise awareness of implicit bias Culture is positioned front and center in this approach to acknowledge and validate how varied norms and life experiences influenced by cultural identities shape one’s worldview, means of communication, and social mores. I am purposeful in presenting identity in plural form; each of us identifies in a variety of ways (e.g., gender, race, class) and, in that sense, are multicultural beings in and of ourselves. An initial step of this work is to turn inward, make conscious, and explore the many ways in which you identify yourself. After better understanding your cultural frame(s), consider how that frame has shaped your experiences and outlook on the world. 1
In doing so I am building off of Ladson-Billings (1995) initial defini-
tion primarily.
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JANUARY 2021
