21st Century Music Education Advocacy
Author: Stefani Langol
About Author: Assistant Professor, Music Education – Berklee College of Music
Use: General Music Skills
Type: Using Technology
Solution: Classroom Technology, Music Education
In these times of unprecedented financial instability, it’s more important than ever to have strong, visibly active, and well-organized music education advocacy groups that will support and defend the arts [...]

Started teaching the first of my Backwards Designed units today (How to Blues- 5th grade) and I thought I’d reflect on the experience. Up ’til now I’ve just been puttering along, re-designing each “unit”(or rather set of fun, but otherwise meaningless, activities) that I have scrapped together and taught since the beginning of the year. [...]

This video by Ken Robinson radically and comically redefines the structure of education to educate “the whole being”. An amazing advocacy video for the inclusion of Art, Music, Dance, Drama and other “creative” subjects in the school system. I love the story he tells about Gillian Lynne. Please share with educators and parents alike!

Ok, here’s my $.02 on this video:
Sure, music helps math and science scores go up, so the studies show. But, where are the studies that say taking math and science will help with one’s musicianship? Why can’t we be the nation that competes with other nations to have the best, highly regarded ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS [...]

This week I’m featuring Americans for the Arts, an organization advocating for Arts Education across the US. From the SchoolMusicMatters website: “Americans for the Arts claims to be the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. With a 40-year record of service, they are dedicated to representing and serving local communities and [...]

Here is the debut post for my newest blog feature “Advocacy Thursday” where I will unveil a new article, website, or tidbit about Music or Education advocacy in my district, city, nation, or perhaps the world!
This week features a website sponsored by Music K-8 Magazine called SchoolMusicMatters.com. The site contains many helpful resources for music [...]

As I was up late tonight formatting all of my students’ Garage Band pieces into mp3’s to look nice and clean for my new inline Yahoo! Media Player, I came across this little gem for those who are looking to use Garage Band for the first time in the classroom or need to brush up [...]

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
ScienceDaily (2009-03-16) — Children exposed to a multi-year program of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a new study.

Check out this fantastic video about the OMA program in Arizona. (Sorry for the scroll down…!)

So, what we do, what I do anyway, is get the kids all “riled up” according to one classroom teacher who will remain unnamed. We all know that; its the nature of the beast so to speak. And thus begs the question, how do we teach creativity, movement and freedom of expression in the elementary [...]