The beginning of the school year always passes in a blur for me. As soon as we go back to school, I find myself spending hours and hours in my classroom, setting up furniture and repairing instruments and writing curriculum and analyzing folk songs—the to-do list seems to grow longer as I spend more time at it. At times like this, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds and forget the real reason we do this work. But every year, I have a moment (usually when I finally see my students, after weeks of preparing) where I suddenly remember why I love teaching and love teaching music. We are not, after all, in the business of making seating charts and organizing manipulatives—we are here to teach music!
Sometimes this tendency, to get so absorbed in the details as to lose sight of the bigger picture, can persist throughout the school year. I like to remind myself of Kodály’s advice to “teach music and singing at school in such a way that it is not a torture but a joy for the pupil; instill a thirst for finer music in him, a thirst which will last for a lifetime.” This (not the sequence or the hand signs or anything else) should be the heart of all that we do. I hope we are able, in the chaos of back to school season, to find joy in our work, and to reflect on how lucky we are to spend our days making music with young people.
Our focus for the year is adapting Kodály pedagogy to meet the needs of the diverse schools and students of Northern California, and we have some exciting events in support of this mission. On Oct. 19, Maree Hennessey, director of the Kodály Center at Holy Names, will present a workshop on teaching older beginners. Maree is truly a master educator, admired for her ability to adapt sequential lessons to meet the needs of various age and social group. On April 18, Minami Cohen and Conway Tan will present a joint workshop on social-emotional learning in the music classroom; we look forward to learning new strategies to incorporate social-emotional skills and cultivate a culturally-responsive classroom. We’re also very excited for the 2020 OAKE conference in Portland, OR! The theme of this year’s conference is “Kodály’s Vision in the 21st Century,” and will feature Gemma Arguelles as the Children’s Choir director and a Sunday Spotlight session with Maree Hennessey. We hope to see a big California contingent in attendance!
Best wishes to all for the school year ahead—may it be a year of joyful music for both teachers and students!
Rita Alway
NCAKE President