I believe music education is critical if our children are going to live flourishing lives.
My main goal as a music teacher is to provide my students with positive and meaningful musical experiences, since music can help students engage more deeply with the diverse worlds in which they live. I cultivate a supportive and respectful classroom environment, and my students learn to work as a team and in small groups. I encourage my students to think of themselves as musicians, through fun forms of improvisation, composition, and performance. By fostering their love for music, I draw my students organically into studying the components of music reading, theory, and history. Furthermore, my music instruction cultivates life skills, including teamwork, self-expression and self-discipline.
I have an interdisciplinary perspective on music education, and I continually make connections between music instruction and course material from the broader school curriculum. I think of music as a language and as mathematics; it is both an art and a science. Music connects us to the deepest mysteries of our hearts and to the diverse experiences of human life around the world.