5 Teaching All Learners
Martina Vasil
Teaching All Learners
Every student is different, but regardless of their race, gender identity, ethnicity, social class, ability, or sexual orientation, each should be treated with the same dignity and respect.
Research shows that it very likely that your future students will have a very different background from your own. There is a an increasing “demographic gap” between teachers (who tend to be White, female, middle class, and monolingual) and students (who tend to be students of color, low-income, and multilingual/limited English proficient). Further, historically, teachers have not been trained in all the ways necessary to keep up with the changing ways our students may be prone to prejudice or feel uncomfortable in the classroom.
While it may be difficult to be fully prepared to teach every learner who enters your classroom, you can do your very best to educate yourself and prepare yourself to teach students who come from a different background, heritage, and social identity from you. Understanding intersectionality and having a “critical consciousness” mindset are the best way music teachers—and all teachers— can be stepping up to ensure the comfort and safety of students. Being critically conscious means being aware of intersectionality and which students are at a high risk of discrimination or oppression from those in power, such as administration, peers, and teachers.
As a teacher, it is your responsibility to ensure every student feels safe no matter what sexuality, race, religion, beliefs, expression they are or hold. Students likewise need to be educated on accepting their peers.
Tips for Teaching All Learners
- Use Universal Design for Learning when crafting learning experiences.
- Understand that there are different kinds of learners: visual, aural/auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic.
- In a classroom, you will likely have 30% visual learners, 25% auditory, 15% tactile-kinesthetic, and 30% with a mixed modality.
- For students who best learn visually, small changes like incorporating technology, using a pictorial representation of the content, and using pictures in place of text can be beneficial.
- For the music classroom specifically, try using a listening map or printing/displaying the iconic or traditional staff notation for them.
- Show understanding and appreciation of differences and other cultures.
- Diversify your course materials (i.e., include a variety of genres and composers).
- Plan program music from different cultures.
- Introduce students to new sounds from different cultures.
- Ensure students from different cultures feel included.
- Do more with underrepresented creators.
- Acknowledge and take time to educate yourself on the proper adoption of customs, practices, or ideas of those who are typically less dominant in society. Research the history, cultural contexts, and performance practices of music written in multiple countries. Study the intent of educational, cultural, and