0135 - Music for Wellbeing in the K-8 Classroom

Course Description

COVID lockdown caused many interruptions for students academically, socially, and emotionally. For students to build resilience and increased well-being post-covid, they need musical environments that foster belonging, fun, creativity, self-expression, and personally relevant musical engagement. The CDC and national pediatric associations are calling children's mental health and adverse childhood experiences as the greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today, declaring these issues a national emergency. During the first year of COVID alone, adolescent girl attempted suicide rates increased 51% compared with pre-covid, while school counselors and access to mental health services remains low. Teachers are often ill-equipped to confront this level of widespread turmoil despite facing it daily in their classrooms. As such, they need empowering professional development that will spark unique steps forward, which will ultimately increase student well-being through music.

The objective of this workshop is to support teachers in using music for broader and more emotionally targeted student support post-COVID. Through a research-based, trauma informed approach, guest instructor Giuliana Conti will guide participants through self-exploration exercises related to music, culture, curriculum, and pedagogy with an overarching purpose of understanding what promotes and hinders well-being for students in their local community. She will begin with a foundational exercise for participants to understand their own relationship with music and then cover research from the field of positive psychology on the development and components of well-being. The neurology and physiology of music listening and playing will be added to the understanding of well-being and how music plays a role in our overall health.

The next stage of the workshop will include an investigation into ethics and critical thinking around music of different genres, cultures, and identities as an entryway into student-centered learning and pedagogy. Culturally responsive teaching and music listening as music learning will underpin the following exercises on specific techniques teachers can apply immediately in their classrooms. Attendees will have the opportunity to share personal tools for success and meaningful musical experiences as they work in groups to design further actionable popular and global music activities for their classrooms. A goal for participants will be to troubleshoot common challenges teachers face around music in the classroom and then experience the student perspective as they lead other groups through an example exercise they design in the last activity. Finally, attendees will learn about specific resources and tools they can use to be more improvisational around music in the classroom so they can respond better to the interests of their students this year and in years to come.

Learner Outcomes

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:

• Describe the role music listening plays in the cognitive, psychological, and social well-being of children and adolescents;
• Design and implement student-centered music listening exercises in the classroom;
• Discuss and implement ethical and culturally-relevant principles of music teaching and learning within the scope of their curriculum and pedagogy
• Develop improvisatory music-listening based activities in the classroom using tools and resources provided by the workshop facilitator.