The Music Ed Mentor Podcast

Today’s episode focuses on highlighting innovation in music education, and my guest is my dear friend Christopher Schroeder. He’ll share with us how Boston Music Project was able to pivot at the start of the pandemic and find new ways to engage learners in music creation and learning despite being physically separated.

In this episode, Dr. Raiber is going to coach us through areas of focus that we can create or shift to ensure the longevity of our careers, which at times can feel so elusive.

In this interview with Steve Giddings, we address some of the most overlooked questions in music education like why are we insisting on continuing to teach one type of musical notation, when there are many other types available for students to use? Why are we teaching the great composers when they weren’t even the popular musicians of their time, rather the music of the socially elite? Why have we so often said that sight reading is the truest test of musical skill and downplayed the ability of students to play by ear? Which is truly the test of musicianship?

My outstanding guests, Kat Reinhart and Sarah Gulish, talk about why songwriting isn’t always part of our core curriculum, how it aligns with the curriculum that we do have, how to fit it into our lives, and how to overcome our inhibitions and become the songwriters we always wanted to be.

This episode talks about social justice—issues with race, repertoire challenges, and more. Some listeners may be uncomfortable, but I urge you to embrace discomfort as a symptom of change, and in this case, I believe it is positive change.

Many of our educator friends have noticed how their students have fallen away—not connecting in the ways we’re used to. How can we reconnect with these students, and more importantly, help them connect with returning and new students, too?

Remember how we did that long year of remote teaching, where we all used a bunch of online teaching tools and such? After all that, you still may not be sure which tools to keep, or if there’s one that does something better, or if there is still an undiscovered tool out there that will make your life easier. Wouldn't it be nice to have an educational technologist to just… tell you? That’s exactly what you get with this episode: a list of essential tools—not for creating music, but for helping you be a more efficient, focused, and happier educator yourself.

Today we’re pulling another pre-pandemic recording out from the archives for you to enjoy. With in-person classes imminent, I want to share with you this discussion I had with my dear friend, Lori Schwartz Reichl. She is a master of classroom management, and in this episode we talk about how to set up your classroom for success and how to create a plan to manage student behaviors.

I hope that you’re in a good place to sit, relax, and enjoy this episode because this discussion with Alex Shapiro is one that I will never forget!In this episode we talk about life, finding meaning, living with passion, the Creative Repertoire Initiative (which, if you haven’t heard of this, is going to make your whole year right now!), and how you can change your perspectives about this whole new digital realm that we’ve discovered.

In this episode of Music Ed Mentor, host Elisa Janson Jones is joined by Dr. Scott Edgar to discuss the after-effects of this last pandemic year in teaching, and what we can do next to ensure that we come back strong when we get our students back in the classroom.