General Music to Overcome Challenging Times

Abstract

Teachers and students are experiencing significant stress and uncertainty this year amid a global pandemic and violent, racially charged, political and civil unrest. It seems fair to say that all of us, students and teachers alike, have navigated a shared traumatic experience. Strong emotions and divisiveness can make normal life feel uncontrollable, even high-risk. The purpose of this column is to provide a germane awareness for teachers to help them better align with social and emotional learning objectives and create trauma-sensitive general music learning environments during these challenging times. It is, after all, our responsibility as caring, professional educators to create safe, predictable settings for children to be, learn, and grow. This can be achieved by awareness and commitment to the creation of social and emotional learning informed/trauma-sensitive general music learning environments in which each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.