Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it. In this fourth episode, I speak with Marissa... Read More

Band Together Podcast

Episode 4 – Marissa Hirsch

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it. In our sixth and final episode, I finish... Read More

Episode 6 – Matt Abraham and Shannon Little (Part 2)

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it. In this fifth episode, I’m talking with Matt... Read More

Episode 5 – Matt Abraham and Shannon Little (Part 1)

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it. In this third episode, I’m talking to Rob... Read More

Episode 3 – Rob Chrol

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this second episode, I’m talking to Alexis Silver who teaches at large, urban Manitoba high school that has a diverse demographic of newcomers and immigrants, indigenous and settler Canadians. What I really... Read More

Episode 2 – Alexis Silver

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it. This first episode features Michael Brandon and we... Read More

Episode 1 – Michael Brandon

In this introductory episode, I lay out the primary objectives of the research and explore the larger questions that we ask of our educators and our arts programs. I also apologize to non-Performing-Arts teachers for playing devil’s advocate at times during the interviews–you’re wonderful educators and I value everything that you do. The show is... Read More

Intro

I’m Kenley Kristofferson and I’m a senior years music educator; in other words, I’m a high school band teacher. I’m also a graduate student at Brandon University and the focus of my research has been on the intentional development of positive band room culture. To say another way, what are teachers doing on purpose to make their room a place where kids emotionally and musically thrive? In this series, I talk with six Manitoba music educators who have thought a lot about this question and they were generous enough to share their experience with me. In fact, they were so generous that we get to share it with you too in this podcast. I asked each band teacher the same fourteen questions to try and find patterns in the research. While there are certainly patterns in topics like positive indicators in students that culture is good, or the role music plays in manifesting a positive band room culture, there’s a variety of answers that are thought-provoking, engaging, and unique. And as with most teachers, there are some amazing stories too.