Episode 151 - Finding Community at NJMEA

For this special episode, I recorded live from the New Jersey Music Educators Association Conference in Atlantic City. During the conference, I had the opportunity to speak with seven music teachers in the state and asked them about community. A special thank you to Kaleidoscope Adventures for making this possible. Guests and Topics: Philip Aguglia of PaGu batons and a high school band director in Buffalo, New York talks about some of the ways he builds community in his program, leaving a footprint behind, and tells us about his batons. Larissa Skinner, a music teacher in the Passaic School District and a Ph.D. student in Urban Education at Rutgers University talks about some of the activities that she uses to help build community to help her students feel successful. David Taylor is a 28 year teacher at Northern Burlington Regional High School  who joined me to talk about the community of our profession. Yale Snyder is the district percussion specialist and band director in the Monroe Township School District. He talked about building relationships that can last forever. Heidi Haderthauer teaches  6-12 band in New Milford, New Jersey. She talks about the three levels of community. Scott Visco teaches at Point Pleasant Borough High School. He talked about the importance of the high school band in a small town and how a quality program can become the artistic center of a community. Melissa Clark teaches 7-8 grade orchestra and 4-6 grade string players in the Lawrence Township Public Schools. She shared her experiences of living in the community where she teaches and how that helped her feel more connected to her students. ------- Are you planning to travel with your group sometime soon? If so, please consider my sponsor, Kaleidoscope Adventures, a full service tour company specializing in student group travel. With a former educator as its CEO, Kaleidoscope Adventures is dedicated to changing student lives through travel and they offer high quality service and an attention to detail that comes from more than 25 years of student travel experience. Trust Kaleidoscope's outstanding staff to focus on your group's one-of-a-kind adventure, so that you can focus on everything else!