TpT

Lessons Learned

Teachers Pay Teachers Became An Answer

In 1981, a Master Teacher, who was my cooperating teacher, offered a thought-provoking question and subsequent challenge, that in answering and accepting, completely set the trajectory of my teaching for the next 30 years. She inquired, “What is your passion?” And immediately chased this query with the bold assertion, “Because it will take all you have and are and believe in and will sacrificially pour yourself into to reach these desperately at-risk students.” I love music. I love to write music and play music. “Perfect,” she nodded. “Then music it is. We will teach them to learn by inspiring them with music.” The children helped me write lyrics which became songs, their songs. Their songs contained their words and those words became sight words and gradually but with never-ending zeal, we learned to read their songs. In learning to read their songs, they learned to read. We sang. We learned. We reveled in the wonderment of learning. They taught me the power and the joy of using music to help students engage with content. From then on and for the next 30 years, I have seen over and over and over again, the power and the joy of sharing music to support and enhance all curricular content.  Through the years, my wonderful, courageous students have basked in the blissful and confidence evoking fun of music to learn. Even Bloom and Gardner, I believe, would have smiled broadly upon the highly creative, wildly engaging musical academics occurring day after day. Beautiful! Now, so very many years later, however,  hundreds and hundreds of songs written through all of these years to support learning have remained unscored and consequently un-sharable, inaccessible, and  stashed on a shelf, for in the flurry of  life and living as a teacher and a mom, taking precious time to learn to score music was of lowest priority. The songs remained packed in my memory with lyrics scribbled on loose sheets of paper in tattered, well-worn folders. With retirement last June came a gift of time; time to learn to score music and time to learn to share music. But where? Then came the strong suggestion of Teachers Pay Teachers, a brilliant online marketplace for the buying and selling of excellent and highly creative  educational resources, as well as a fabulous network of support, encouragement, and help for all educators. So last mid-September, Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) became the home of my new “music to learn” store called, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, and step by step, note by note, I am learning to transcribe those songs that have been swirling and dancing in my mind for an entire career.  TpT has provided a forum, a venue, a storefront, a chance for the previously inaccessible to be shared.