برچسب: music

Mariachi program teaches history and culture as well as music

Credit: Allie Palomera from SCCOE

Zaida Ramos first learned the magic of mariachi from her father when she was a little girl. Now they make music together, running the bilingual music program for San Jose’s Alum Rock Union School District.

Her father, Juan, is the maestro, the music director. She’s the program director. The father and daughter duo collaborate to share the culture and heritage of mariachi music with their students. The Ramos clan has been teaching children music for more than two decades. It’s a veritable family business.

“Mariachi is how I grew up. In my family, we were always singing,” said Ramos, a vocalist who also plays the violin. “It’s so fulfilling for us, so rewarding, to share mariachi with the families and with the whole community. Everybody is part of the performance because everybody’s connected to these songs, you know? Many times you’ll hear the audience sing along, they laugh, they cry. It resonates with everybody in some way, it’s their story.”

Students from third to eighth grade gather after school and during the summer to steep in the folkloric music of the southwest region of Mexico, a musical tradition marked by stringed instruments, strolling musicians clad in intricately embroidered costumes and a distinctive yell known as a “grito.” The youngsters in this program learn how to play instruments, including the guitarron, guitar, vihuela, violin, and the trumpet and to sing, art forms that require equal parts creativity and discipline. They also learn the beauty and fluidity of ballet folklorico.

“I am really driven by the ideal of a free and public education, and the arts need to be part of that,” said Sofia Fojas, arts coordinator for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. “Music and the arts are part of being human. It’s a universal language, a way to bridge the different cultures we see in the classroom in California. It’s really about the importance of arts and culture and engaging youth who traditionally have not had access.”

Credit: Allie Palomera from SCCOE

Through the study of mariachi, children from this predominantly Latino district learn that music is more than sound. It’s also about identity, history and culture. Mariachi contains myriad meanings because there is great nuance and complexity embedded in its notes. While the melodies evoke Mexican heritage, with roots deep in the country’s colonial period, many of the themes are also universal.

“I believe that by embracing our cultural heritage and sharing our stories through music, we can inspire positive change and create a more harmonious society,” said Guillermo Tejeda, a musician who specializes in teaching history, jazz and mariachi to youth. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see how music can empower and inspire young people in our community.”

Carrying this rich artistic tradition into a new generation is part of what drives Ramos. She sees mariachi as a way to connect students to their own unique voice as well as the collective spirit of their community.

“I always tell them, you are ambassadors of your whole community,” said Ramos, who also works in real estate. “Wherever you go, you are not only representing East San Jose, you’re representing a whole culture. You’re representing Mexican culture and you’re representing mariachi. There’s a sense of pride in who you are.”

Struggle is often a part of the stories told in mariachi music. It’s also part of the reality of teaching music in a time of tight budgets and declining enrollment. While Ramos is cheered by how many of her students acquire a lifelong love of music, she wishes she didn’t always have to fight for more funding.

“We need more teachers, we need more instruments, we need more support, we need more time, we need more classes,” said Ramos, “and that all comes down to budgeting. We have lots of requests for the kids to perform and to represent Alum Rock, but if we don’t have the budget to support it, we can’t do it.”

Many arts advocates are hopeful that an infusion of Proposition 28 funding may help bolster projects like the mariachi program, an arts ed program that represents the cultural heritage of the community.

“Culturally relevant curriculum and instruction helps educators build relationships with students by leveraging what they bring to the classroom,” said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative. “It helps ensure relevance and engagement and maximizes inclusivity.”

The braided nature of art, the way it’s tightly interwoven with history and culture over time, gives mariachi its power. Arts education also opens up avenues of opportunity and possibility for students as well as nurturing a sense of belonging, experts say.

“You’re teaching them about their own past,” said Fojas, who taught orchestra, band and mariachi for 20 years. “The majority of students that I taught were of Mexican descent, so when you’re teaching mariachi, you’re actually teaching them about the history of Mexico.”

In a post-pandemic world, when absenteeism and disengagement are running high, the arts can be a path to teach students how to persevere through adversity. Budding musicians must learn how to have the grit to rehearse tirelessly and then perform fearlessly before an audience. Fojas sees arts education as a magnet to draw students back to school.

“Everybody needs to understand the importance of art,” said Fojas. “Arts is culture, and when you deny people arts, you’re denying them culture, and those cultural artifacts are the things we leave behind. So if we deny youth the ability to participate in the arts, we’re denying future generations the ability to see what we’ve left behind.”

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30/05/2025
How music education sharpens the brain, tunes us up for life

Elementary students practicing music at school.

Credit: Music Workshop

When Amy Richter was a little girl, her father often traveled for work. He often came home bearing gifts of music and record albums. They bonded while poring over all that vinyl, she recalls, exploring the world of music from classical and rock to bluegrass.

Richter’s love of music only grew as she got older, and she studied voice and piano. Diagnosed with dyslexia, she also found that music helped her cope with her learning disability. It helped her gain focus and confidence. That’s why she studied music therapy in college. She knows the power of music to supercharge our brains.

“Music really became the guiding force in my education and helped me to connect with other people, helping build confidence through performance, also helping with my mental health,” said Richter, who founded Music Workshop, a free music curriculum designed to cultivate a love of music from a young age, that can help schools beef up their arts offerings on the cheap. Schools across the country, including hundreds in California, from Yuba City to San Diego, now use her program. “It really became a tool in my life to better myself.”

To be sure, aficionados of the arts have long argued that art transforms us, but in recent years, neuroscience has shown just how music can shape the architecture of the brain. This cognitive research illuminates the connection between music and learning and gives heft to longstanding arguments for the power of music education that are newly relevant in the wake of California’s Proposition 28, which sets aside money for arts education in schools.

“The K-12 grades are the years in which brain function is most rapidly evolving and information from all different types of learning and subjects is being processed and absorbed, including connections across what we might think of as different school subjects, but they are all connected in our developing brains,” said Giuliana Conti, director of education and equity for Music Workshop, which is particularly popular at schools that often tap substitute teachers in an era of high teacher absences.

“Music education provides physical and auditory experiences that work like bridges for brain structures. As the brain processes musical sounds and body movements, neural pathways across different regions of the brain grow and strengthen. The more those pathways are activated, the more usable they become across time and other skill sets or learning experiences.”

Amid the ongoing crises in literacy and numeracy plaguing our schools, and the enduring sting of pandemic learning loss, many arts advocates are pointing to music education as a way to boost executive functioning in the brain. This enhanced cognitive function, often coupled with a surge in well-being, may be the secret sauce that makes music education such an academic powerhouse, research suggests. Music may prime the brain to learn.

“Music is this wonderful, holistic way of engaging almost everything that is important for education,” said Nina Kraus, a noted neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies the biology of auditory learning, in a webinar. “First of all, we know that the ingredients that are important in making music and the ones that are important for reading and literacy are the same ingredients. So when you’re strengthening your brain by making music, you’re strengthening your brain for language.”

Kraus, who grew up listening to her mother play the piano, is passionate about the impact of sound, ranging from the distracting to the sublime, from noise pollution to Puccini, on the brain. The gist of much of her research is how thoroughly sound shapes cognition. Music training, for example, sets up children’s brains to become better learners by enhancing the sound processing that underpins language, she says.

While we live in a visually oriented world, our brains are fundamentally wired for sound, she argues. Reading, for example, is a relatively new phenomenon in human history, while listening keenly for a sound, say a predator, is a primal impulse deeply embedded in the brain. Put simply, what we hear shapes who we are.

“Music really is the jackpot,” as Kraus, author of “Of Sound Mind,” puts it. She has conducted extensive research showing that music education helps boost test scores for low-income children.

Music also helps us manage stress. Perhaps that’s one reason that offering more music and arts classes is also associated with lower chronic absenteeism rates and higher attendance, research suggests. Think of music education as lifting weights with your brain. It makes the whole apparatus stronger and healthier.

“Music is therapeutic because it helps us to regulate our emotions,” said Richter, who adds that a culturally relevant music curriculum can help engage a diverse student body. “It helps us to lower our cortisol levels. It helps promote relaxation. It helps us with focus and concentration. It also helps us with connection. Now more than ever, we know how important connection is, especially among our youth.”

In the post-pandemic era, these insights may well fuel the uptake of music classes in a state struggling with low test scores, but the implications for brain health actually go far beyond academic prowess and social-emotional well-being in childhood.

Indeed, early musical experiences may impart a lifelong neuroplasticity, Kraus has documented. Studies suggest that a 65-year-old musician has the neural activity of a 25-year-old non-musician. A 65-year-old who played music as a child but hasn’t touched an instrument in ages still has neural responses faster than a peer who never played music, although slower than those of a die-hard musician.

“What I would say to everyone who thinks about picking up an instrument: It’s never too late,” said Richter. “Even just practicing scales can help with cell regeneration. So I encourage adults to continue to learn music along the way, whether that’s picking up an instrument or listening to music, it’s always really important for brain development.”

Music pricks up our hearts and minds, as well as our ears. Children must persevere to master a piece of music and collaborate to perform it in the spotlight. They must learn focus, patience and grace under pressure. That kind of electrifying shared experience, working as a community, is something new to many of them, experts say.

“When music is more regularly incorporated as part of children’s everyday lives,” said Conti, “it can move the needle in their learning and development more effectively across many different parts of their lives: socially, emotionally, musically and academically.”

It’s the intangible effects of music education, the elements that can’t be reduced to data points and parameters, that strike Kraus as the most profound. Music builds a feeling of joy, a sense of belonging between musicians, and their listeners, that little else in our age of digital background noise can.

“Music connects us, and it connects us in a way that hardly anything I know does, so it’s very, very important,” said Kraus. “We live in a very disconnected world. Depression, anxiety, alienation, the inability to focus, all of that is on the rise. Intolerance is on the rise. Music is a way to bring us together.”

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24/05/2025
Harmony Project: Harnessing the power of music to boost LAUSD students

The Harmony Projects offer free music education to low-income children in Los Angeles.

credit: the Harmony Project

When Rigoberto Sanchez-Mejia was just 5 years old, he started taking music lessons at the Harmony Project in Los Angeles. He started out on the drums and the piano, but as soon as he picked up the violin, he knew he had found his instrument.

“Once I found the violin, that was it. It’s a big part of me,” said the soft-spoken 17-year-old who’s planning to study biochemistry at UC San Diego in the fall. “It was love at first sight.”

Getting their first instrument is an emotionally stirring experience for many children, but for the low-income students served by the Harmony Project, it’s often a life-changing event as well. Amid the youth mental health crisis in the wake of the pandemic, some find that music can be soothing as well as intellectually enriching.

“I feel like it calms me down,” said Sanchez-Mejia, who plays jazz, classical and mariachi music with his beloved stringed instrument. “The best way I can explain it is sort of when everything is going a bit crazy in my head, there’s a bit too much going on, the violin is just able to calm those down a bit, so I can focus. I’m not worrying about 10 things at once.”

At Harmony, music is an art form and a lifeline that helps pave the way for college. The largest nonprofit music education organization in Los Angeles, serving Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) as well as Compton and South Central among other areas, boasts a staggering 97% high school graduation rate. Roughly 79% of these young artists also become first-generation college students despite the myriad obstacles caused by poverty and worsened by the pandemic.

Students learn music and more at the Harmony Project in Los Angeles.
credit: the Harmony Project

“It’s rough,” said Executive Director Natalie Jackson. “The last two years we have been seeing kids with so much more anxiety, so much more struggle, so much more loneliness.”

Founded by Margaret Martin in 2001 primarily as a public health intervention, the Harmony Project gives the children of the city’s hardscrabble neighborhoods access to free music education. The core belief here, that music lessons sharpen brain function, setting the stage for academic success, was famously studied by neuroscientist Nina Kraus. Giving children in poverty, who are at a far greater risk of dropping out of school than their higher-income peers, a cognitive boost early on can have a lasting impact on the course of their lives.

“Harmony has changed my life,” said Sanchez-Mejia. “It introduced me to the world of music, and through that I made so many connections and met so many people that really helped set the path I take now, going to college, having the escape of music, and being able to get opportunities others may not.”

Sanchez-Mejia is one of more than 4,000 students enrolled in this research-backed arts education initiative, which taps into the neuroscience of music to spark learning. Playing an instrument strengthens the brain’s ability to capture the depth and richness of language, experts say, boosting the cornerstone skill of literacy. Music is the key that unlocks the brain’s full potential.

“Music education and empowering youth to connect through music is at the core of everything we do at the Harmony Project,” said Jackson. “We envision a world where all youth have equal access to opportunities to make music and the resources needed to thrive in college and beyond.”

Discipline is among the program’s grace notes. Children pursue music for years, from K to 12, helping them develop a dogged sense of persistence and keen commitment to their craft and ambitions in music and beyond. That’s partly because the ability to focus for extended periods of time, a mandatory skill in music class, also buttresses all other academic pursuits.

Wellness is another chord woven throughout the program. In addition to receiving an instrument to take home and free music classes, students also gain access to social services, from food to mental health care. During the pandemic, Harmony tried to provide whatever its families needed.

“Our model is very holistic,” said Jackson. “We’re not just looking at a kid for an hour a day and focusing on whether or not they can play an A major scale. We’re looking to see how we can help the entire family in some way. Once we commit to a community, we really try to stay. Once a child is in our program, we commit for their entire childhood.”

Children study music at the Harmony Project in Los Angeles.
credit: the Harmony Project

Jackson notes that most students now seem a year or two behind where they were before the pandemic. That learning loss hurts their ability to grasp music concepts initially, but she notes the music lessons also help them catch up.

“Our third-graders aren’t really third-graders,” she said, “they are more like second-graders or first-graders.”

She also sees more families now in which older children must find a job to make ends meet. That cuts into time for music, not to mention school.

“It used to take two incomes to put food on the table, now sometimes it takes three,” said Jackson. “If they have to change their schedule to pick up an extra shift at Taco Bell, we try to accommodate them.”

Guillermo Tejeda, a jazz musician and educator, said that Harmony’s immersive approach to music education mixed with community outreach has inspired his own work with LA’s Neighborhood Orchestra.

I “highly respect their work in providing music education to underprivileged children,” said Tejada. “Their holistic approach fosters community, discipline, and personal growth, leading to transformative academic results.”

Others applaud the program’s embrace of rigor and research, the core of the science of learning, as well as empathy.

“I’m impressed with the scope and reach of the Harmony Project,” said Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos. “Building trusting relationships, this to me is fundamental to any success in life, and is often overlooked as a core component of a program. Compassion is crucial to a healthy community.”

Rigoberto Sanchez-Mejia learned to love the violin through the Harmony Project
credit: Harmony Project

In an age of distraction, experts say the power of sustained concentration, honed through musical training, often boosts scholastic achievement.

Sanchez-Mejia has studied at Harmony for 12 years, taking part in the youth orchestra as well as helping mentor younger students while also getting on the honor roll at school. He credits Harmony with setting him on the path to college and helping him find his footing along the way.

As a first-generation college student, practicality is top of mind. That’s why he initially struggled with whether to major in music or science at UCSD.

“It is a little scary being the first one to go to college in my family since I don’t really have anyone that I can rely on in my family,” he said, “and instead I have to go out my way to find my own resources.”

In the end, he decided on a science major, but he says he’ll still play the violin 10-12 hours a week. He’s also hoping to snag a spot with Orange County’s Synesthesia Sinfonietta during college, even though it’s a brutal commute.

“I ended up picking biochemistry mostly because it felt a little safer for my future, but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving music behind at all,” he said.”I love the violin.”

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17/05/2025
The sound of music returns to students traumatized by the Eaton fire

Student musicians give a concert for Pasadena Unified.

credit: Pasadena Unified School District

An Altadena family with four young children was awakened in the middle of the night by a firefighter’s urgent evacuation order. They fled their house with little more than the pajamas on their backs. The youngest child, a violinist, left her instrument behind. When the family arrived at the evacuation shelter, her greatest worry was whether her violin was going to be safe.

In the wake of the catastrophic Eaton fire that swept through Los Angeles in January, many people lost their lives, homes and possessions to the flames. Many of the students at Altadena Arts Magnet and Eliot Arts Magnet lost not only their houses but also their school and the cherished musical instruments stored in the band room.

To a child, losing an instrument can feel almost like losing a loved one. That’s why it was so transformative when Guitar Center and Sony joined forces to put instruments back in the hands of these children.

“Children are particularly vulnerable, showing their fears through deep emotional responses to the upheaval,” said Natalie Jackson, executive director of the Harmony Project, a group that gives low-income Los Angeles students access to free music education. Eliot Arts Magnet is among their hubs. “When people support music programming, they are not just funding music lessons, they’re investing in stability, healing and opportunity for children, like our young violinist, who have faced and continue to face immense hardship.”

Myka Miller, executive director of the Guitar Center Music Foundation, spearheads disaster relief efforts, from Hurricane Helene to the LA fires. An oboist who has been playing since she was 12, Miller believes music can be a balm for crushed spirits, a key to unlocking resilience.

“Your instrument is a part of you, it’s an extension of our soul,” said Miller, whose initiative received about 1,000 applications and has given away 450 instruments so far. The Altadena music students have received about $200,000 worth. “You can imagine when you’re in a situation like that and you lose everything, that music is the one thing that’s constant in your life.”

Student musicians rehearse before a concert at Pasadena Unified School District.
credit: Pasadena Unified School District

Music has been a guiding light for Karen Klages, a music specialist for Pasadena Unified School District. While her Altadena home was saved by neighbors heroically battling the flames with garden hoses, the trauma still haunts her and her students. Many of her fifth graders, who are still not back in their homes, remain fearful of the future. Others are fighting worry with grit. A group of her music students banded together every day for three weeks to load and unload relief supplies. They became friends for life, she says.

“It’s been difficult for me personally and still is. Seeing my whole town burn down has been a shock to the system,” she said sadly. “Music has been a lifeline for everyone. Our band and orchestra is busy, and we all needed that focus.”

The arts have also been key to healing for Karen Anderson, the arts and enrichment coordinator for the Pasadena Unified School District, who has only now gotten back into her 1918 Altadena house, which was spared during the blaze. She has just begun the long, slow process of repairing the damage from smoke, soot and ash at her home while she tries to bring the sound of music back to the children.

“It’s been brutal. We made it through Covid, and then there were the fires,” she said, choking up with emotion. “But we were able to leverage a lot of arts programming for well-being. It’s super important to restore normalcy for children as quickly as possible. We didn’t want families to worry about instruments. We wanted to take care of it for them. One less thing to worry about.”

Anderson has been bound and determined to replace a cavalcade of instruments, including 74 violins, 39 flutes, 61 clarinets, 68 trumpets, 34 saxophones, 17 trombones, 8 french and baritone horns and one tuba. That’s on top of the rock and mariachi instruments. She also made a special effort to replace one of the arts teacher’s prized vintage guitars, a beloved instrument Eric Gothold lost to the fires, like the rest of his family’s earthly possessions.

Students from the Eliot Arts Magnet band received new instruments to replace the ones lost in the fire.

“He was hugging it and he said, ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’ I felt like it was the least we could do,” she said.

Anderson is doing her best to help students regain their equilibrium while still coping with her own pain. Like many of the district’s teachers, she has been so focused on helping others that she hasn’t yet had time to fully digest her own feelings.

“I’m grateful that we still have a house, you know?,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “But there’s a period where you almost feel guilty. Our house survived.”

Klages says that knowing that people care is helping the student community beat back the grief of coping with so much destruction.

“It’s all part of the healing process, but frankly, everyone is still in a state of shock over so much loss,” she said. “There are rallying cries coming in from everywhere, and we hang on to that encouragement.”

The deep emotional reward of helping people in dire straits is something Miller knows well, but helping these children transcend their tragedy has been particularly touching for all involved.

That’s why Miller, who usually just ships gifts out to recipients, broke with tradition and met with a group of students at the Pasadena Guitar Center store to hand them their new instruments.

“There’s really nothing like that experience,” she said. “It’s hard to describe. It was really cool for them to meet all the other people in the same boat as them, and for me just to see all their faces light up. The gratitude was overwhelming.”

These shiny new instruments, she hopes, may bring the children and their families a note of optimism amid the ashes.

“Donors are giving students back not only their instruments,” said Jackson, “but their dreams, and a sense of hope that resonates beyond the music room.”

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05/05/2025
Casey Clementson’s Reflections on What to Do in Music Ensemble + Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!
Give clear, concrete directions. Scan for follow-though

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Casey Clementson, author of the following post, is a middle school music teacher at Rosemount Middle School in Rosemount, MN.

As part of her work as a Teach Like a Champion Fellow, Casey studied the What to Do Cycle, using its principles and adapting them to the challenges of doubly-complex settings like Concert Band.

Her reflections (below) are so helpful… they’re our Teacher Appreciation Week gift to you!

Meanwhile if you’re interested in learning more about What to Do Directions or other elements of productve and orderly classrooms, join us for our Building Strong Classroom Cultures workshop in Tarrytown, NY, on June 5th and 6th; info here.

And if you are interested in finding our more about becoming a TLAC Fellow, applications for our fourth cohort are open and available here: https://teachlikeachampion.org/teach-like-champion-fellows/ and are due by May 30, 2025.

Meanwhile, here are Casey’s insights:

The Concert Band or Orchestra is a complex environment. Not only are students responsible for their personal materials needed for learning, they are also in charge of a musical instrument (one that costs hundreds of dollars). In my subject area – Concert Band – there could be over ten different types of musical instruments being used among the students, up to four different key signatures, and two different clefs used for reading music notation. To top it off, most percussionists are required to perform musical tasks completely independent but at the same time as the other students in the ensemble!

Self-regulation and self-discipline from the students is essential to making this type of classroom shine. The best Instrumental Music teachers know how to harness these challenges to shape the attention of their student musicians to keep everyone learning and helping every student become an independent musician.

During my time as a TLAC Fellow, I tried on many techniques to see how they fit in a class where nobody sits at a desk to learn. The technique that I fell in love with most was the What to Do Cycle. The What to Do Cycle is a sequence of moves that provides students clarity so they can experience success and belonging in the classroom.

See Casey use the What to Do Cycle here:

Here are a few things I learned during this process:

What To Do Cycles take planning, practice, and refinement.

There is a potency in consciously naming a What to Do Cycle. Teachers may say they are giving clear instructions when they are really not. Teachers may assume the students will magically do what is asked of them no matter what. I was this teacher.

For example, I have been teaching out of the same rhythm workbook for years. This year, I carefully craft my explanations, my examples, and my directions each day we have a rhythm lesson. I learned to change the register and tempo of my voice to make the ask exciting, or magical, or to harness middle school energy into concentration.

Sometimes Be Seen Looking and Correct When Necessary are the most important part of the What to Do Cycle.

A What to Do Cycle is more than just giving clear concise directions. By using Be Seen Looking and some positive narration: “The flute section has really got their pencils moving” or using an Anonymous Individual Correction such as, “Waiting for two saxophones to get their Scale sheet out,” while circulating the room is effective.

One of the greatest benefits has been the use of Private Individual Correction. Anything from softly saying “Check you counts in measure 1” to “Do you have something in your mouth that needs to go in the garbage?” to the more urgent “I need you to turn your body to the front and participate” allows students to feel safe while they practice the expectations of the task at hand or of the classroom in general.

Purpose not Power.

One of my most impactful take-aways from a training of the What to Do cycle was the phrase “Purpose not Power.” In my 26 years of teaching, I certainly remember many instances of power struggles between me and a student. Being able to reframe my thinking that everything I do to guide behavior and culture is for the service of learning music versus trying to control young people has resulted in powerful outcomes:
- Our rehearsals are calmer.
- My emotional constancy has been easier to maintain.
- Our students are visibly and audibly improving at a rate we have not seen since pre-pandemic.
My “thank yous” and smiles to students have been more genuine than ever after a Be Seen Looking, an Anonymous Individual Correction, or in celebration of a job well-done.

The purpose of the TLAC Fellows program is a two-way street: The TLAC team learns from the Fellows and receives a ton of great video from us to work with. And, in return, I was inspired to improve my craft, thus reigniting my love of teaching.

Post script 1: Since adopting the use of strong WTD cycles, Cold Call has become a natural extension/part of our classroom (even without a roll out). After a Be Seen Looking and making eye contact with multiple students, I can engage in successful Cold Calls, but that’s for another blog post.

Post script 2: Our school is a 1:1 iPad school. After reading the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt over the summer, my colleague and I decided the Band Area would be an iPad-free zone. Students turn their iPad in at the beginning of class and don’t pick it up until the bell rings. For 52 minutes, our musicians get to engage in something truly collective – learning music together – without the distraction of gaming, doing work for another class, or communicating with peers online. Could this be another factor in a successful classroom this year? Probably, yes!
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03/05/2025
Staying connected with music has enriched my college life

Two years ago, I was ready to give up everything from my old life and move 3,000 miles away to pursue journalism at San Diego State University. This meant leaving behind my friends, family and my passion for singing and performance. I was sure I would have to leave behind my musical side to focus on my academics, take on a campus job and join the student newspaper.

Or did I?

I have been singing almost my entire life, and did so anywhere I could. The first evidence comes from a 2007 video, where 3-year-old me danced around my living room singing “I’m Wishing” from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” A few years later, I took the hobby from my living room to the stage. I joined the school choir and began performing in local productions.

From then until my high school graduation in 2022, there was not a month that went by where I wasn’t in a show, choir or dance class.

Music and theater were always my favorite hobbies, but not something I saw myself pursuing as a career. I decided to study journalism in college after discovering my passion for it during my senior year of high school.

But after dedicating countless hours of my life to performance, how could I leave all that behind in pursuit of my degree?

Luckily, I didn’t have to.

Performing served me so well during my time in high school, allowing me to form lifelong friendships and escape from my other endeavors, so I decided to take the risk and blend my old life into my new college one. I soon found the a cappella group I wanted to join: SoundWave.

I had never done a cappella before, but I wanted to give it a shot. Once I had settled into my first week of freshman year, I signed up to audition and was welcomed into a wonderful community.

Unfortunately, the rest of my first semester at university did not go so smoothly. I was in a rough living situation at my dorm and had trouble making friends. Every day, I wanted nothing more than to transfer home.

But when I went to rehearsal, I left those troubles at the door and found solace in a community that valued every single one of its members. At the time, I had wished that we had rehearsal every day.

Now in my third year of college, and feeling more settled, I am grateful that my SoundWave commitment is flexible, allowing time for my academics and outside endeavors, such as work and an internship.

I believe in the importance of career-focused pursuits. As a journalism major, I report and write for my college newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and am part of the leadership for our Society of Professional Journalists chapter.

However, I also believe in the importance of joining clubs that exist outside your academic realm. Not only do such activities make you stand out to potential employers, but they are also a great way to meet people with similar interests.

Jacob Opatz, a fourth-year computer science major who currently serves as the president of SoundWave, agrees.

“People always cite the studies that say ‘music is good for your brain,’ but on a deeper level, having a community on campus and working towards a creative goal is so important for my mental health,” he said. “Also, since my major is computer science, I’m desperate to find something creative and fun to break up my otherwise boring schedule.”

Extracurricular activities in grade schools have been proven to improve optimism and lower depression and screen time, according to a 2020 study by Preventative Medicine.

As a college student, I am on my laptop for at least eight hours a day. When I’m not on my laptop, I’m usually on my phone scrolling social media.

Rehearsal gets me to put the screen down and create something with the people around me.

We rehearse two days a week. Members are also expected to practice on their own each day. However, the competition season is more hectic. In the months leading up to the quarterfinals for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, our two-hour rehearsals turn into three.

New member and third-year psychology major Lexy Sakrekoff has had to make some sacrifices to be in the group.

“I used to go home more on the weekends to visit my mom in Oceanside, but now I avoid that because of our Sunday rehearsals,” she said.

However, Sakrekoff says the sacrifice is worth it.

“It helps that [my friends and family] are also super supportive and excited that I’m in SoundWave. I even rehearse my songs in front of them, and that’s always fun for them to listen to,” she said. There have definitely been times when I was up late doing homework after rehearsal or had to cut down my work hours due to performances. But despite my junior year being the busiest so far, SoundWave has always felt like a vital outlet rather than an obligation.

•••

Calista Stocker is in her third year at San Diego State University, pursuing a journalism major and sociology minor, and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

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29/04/2025
Pacifica’s ‘singing principal’ engages students through music

Student band members perform a concert at the Pacifica School District.

Credit: Courtesy of Tom Stafford

Tom Stafford has been singing his heart out since he was 5 years old, performing in a gospel trio with his sister, Pam, and their mother, Doris. The Stafford Family singers traveled all over Appalachia with their unique three-part harmony.

“My mother used to say I came out of the womb singing,” says Stafford, who grew up in Vanceburg, Kentucky, before studying music at Morehead State University and getting a master’s degree in education at the University of Louisville.

Tom Stafford, former music teacher, principal and arts coordinator for Pacifica School District.
Credit: Courtesy of Tom Stafford

The exuberant 61-year-old hasn’t stopped singing yet. When Stafford first landed at the Pacifica School District just south of San Francisco in 2002 as a choral director, he taught music to all the third, fourth and fifth graders. That’s well over 1,000 students a week.

“It was pretty crazy,” he admits. “It was a lot. By the time I was done on Friday afternoon, I was toast. Thank God I was younger then. But, you know, I loved it. I loved that every kid in town knew me.”

Over the years, Stafford has played many roles in Pacifica, including music teacher, bandleader, classroom teacher, principal of Linda Mar and Cabrillo schools and visual and performing arts coordinator. He was dubbed the “singing principal” because he sang to his students every day. It was his secret to spark engagement amid widespread student disaffection.

“It’s a way to get their attention and help them listen to you and know that you are there and that you care,” he said. “The arts are always the first thing cut, and that’s sad because the arts help you build a strong foundation for everything else. Learning to read music early is going to improve reading in class. It’s going to improve the way kids think mathematically in class.”

Stafford retired last year, but his legacy lives on for Pacifica’s students because he remains the district’s unofficial music man, the architect of its ambitious sequential music curriculum. He has always believed that music matters in education.

“We are aesthetic beings by nature,” Stafford said. “And because of that, having a music program allows kids to really explore who they are as individuals, as musicians, as students, as anything they really want to be. The arts in general allow for kids to experiment in becoming who they are.”

Stafford stepped up when opportunity knocked, expanding the district’s ambitious music program, bolstered by new Proposition 28 funding. Despite declining enrollment and the budget woes it triggers, a challenge now facing many districts, Pacifica remains all in on music education.

“Their early commitment to expanding music education is a game-changer for their students,” said Allison Gamlen, visual and performing arts coordinator for the San Mateo County Office of Education. “By offering a sequential, standards-based music program from TK through grade 8, they are ensuring that every child has the opportunity to develop creativity, collaboration and critical thinking skills through music.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc9ekvnYdyg
Check out a student performance from 2015 at Cabrillo School in Pacifica, which features an introduction by then-arts coordinator Tom Stafford, now retired.

Stafford had to tap into multiple funding streams, combining private philanthropy with Proposition 28 money, to expand the district’s original music program to reach all grades from transitional kindergarten to eight. Finding music teachers amid a chronic staffing shortage was also a key challenge.

“You have to leverage every dollar to make it happen,” he said. “You leverage the other funding you have so you can use Prop. 28 to pay the teachers.”

While some school districts have been hesitant to jump on Proposition 28 arts funding, others have been chomping at the bit to bring the arts back into classrooms after decades of cutbacks. Under Stafford’s watch, Pacifica envisioned a symphony of learning, a program that gradually develops from transitional kindergarten to eight so that students emerge with a profound understanding of the art form.

“Depth of knowledge in music education, focusing on progressing skills over time within a single discipline, has profound benefits for students,” Gamlen said. “By prioritizing depth in music education, Pacifica is giving students more than just exposure. They’re equipping them with a pathway to mastery, self-expression and a lifelong love of the arts.”

Even if students don’t become virtuosos, this deep dive into music will make a lasting impact, experts say. Even students with a tin ear are likely to get the full cognitive boost that music lessons give the growing brain. For example, research suggests that even 45 minutes of arts practice, however rudimentary it may be, notably reduces stress. Skill is no obstacle. You can be drawing blurry stick figures or mangling chopsticks on the piano, and it still helps spark focus and concentration in the classroom.

“Sustained, high-quality arts education enhances academic achievement, social-emotional learning and overall student engagement,” Gamlen said. “Pacifica’s investment in music is an investment in their students’ success —both in school and beyond.”

When Stafford stepped down last year, he passed the torch to Benjamin Gower, the district’s current visual and performing arts coordinator and band director. They both see music as a tool for building academic skills and emotional resilience in a generation hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. The program starts in transitional kindergarten with the basics of song, rhythm, and dance and builds until students join a concert band and specialize in a woodwind, brass or percussion instrument by eighth grade.

“While the core subject areas teach us the important things we need to understand the world, it is art that helps us learn how to understand ourselves and to be able to live with and make sense of the world around us,” Gower said. “Music is what helps to do that for me and has impacted my life in almost every way I can think of, and it’s that idea that helped inspire me to become a teacher in the first place.”

Immersing in music over time allows students to achieve a feeling of expertise, of charting their own course and following their passion, that can lead to greater knowledge and pride, experts say.

“Music requires students to develop critical thinking skills, organizational skills, understanding the need for teamwork, communication skills, the idea and concept of practicing for improvement,” Gower said, “while also helping boost their self-confidence and helping them to learn how to overcome difficult obstacles and tasks.”

Pacifica School District students compete in an all-city band competition.
Credit: Tom Stafford

Some children will discover an instrument they will play their whole life. That musical acumen will help shape their identity, buttressing their love of learning.

“Sequential music and arts programs are essential,” said Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos. “Deep learning in any subject teaches not only about the subject, but it also teaches one how to learn, how to be disciplined, how to embrace understanding, and to feel confident in one’s ability to understand, question and wonder.”

Stafford has long seen music as a balm for the soul. He says he has always embraced this philosophy: “If you didn’t show up to help, then why are you here?”

When he realized how much suffering and isolation children had weathered during the pandemic, he began holding “dance parties” during recess at school. He cranked up the music, from disco to K-pop, and invited all comers to bust a move.

“That was my favorite part of being principal,” he said. “I wanted to do something joyous. It was also the best move I ever made to maintain discipline.”

The dance break gave students a chance to let off steam, which helped release frustrations and resolve behavior issues in class, and gave them a chance to bond with their peers. If he ever got too busy and had to cancel a dance party, students inevitably came knocking on his door. They didn’t want to miss out on a chance to socialize.

“They needed it, and they knew they needed it,” said Stafford, “Music is how you build bridges in a community. It brings people together.”

The best part of retirement for Stafford is finally having more time for his own music, such as his revue “Totally Tom.” He says doesn’t miss the herculean administrative headache of running a school, but he does miss the kids.

“I miss them every day.”

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19/04/2025