👀 What’s Inside This Newsletter:
- 🎻 The "Violins of Hope": A powerful lesson in history and middle school
- 🍱 A Taste of the World: Why diversity in our repertoire matters more than ever
- 🐧 The Penguin Dilemma: How I try to represent continent (mostly)
- 🗓️ Resolutions & Resources: My plan for more visual exploration this year
🤦♀️ Those Horrible Numbers
You can always tell who the school teachers are—and who are the musicians are that don’t teach many middle school students!
We recently hosted a presentation on The Violins of Hope for our middle school music students.
At one point, a student asked the visiting violinist how long she had been teaching.
When she answered, the entire room erupted with those horrible numbers - all the school teachers knew it was coming but she had never experienced such an uproar before from her answer of 6-7 years!
🎻 The Power of Music and History
I didn’t know about the Violins of Hope until this year. They are instruments—mostly violins (which our presenter explained is traditionally significant in Jewish culture)—that were played by Jewish prisoners in concentration camps.
Each instrument carries the story of its owner, and the collection is incredibly powerful as the Holocaust becomes personal to the students.
Our high school students will soon spend a full day at the Jewish Museum, immersing themselves in the history of the Holocaust and learning about the prisoner orchestras formed during that time. It’s one thing to read history—it’s another to hear and see it through music.
🍣 Food, Culture, and Why It Matters
Have you ever stopped to think about the incredible variety of food we have access to in America? Over break, I ate my way around the world—sushi, burritos, pizza, BBQ, potatoes, grits, and more foods than I really want to admit!
II’ve lived in a lot of different places in my life and experienced different cultures. When I was 8, we lived in Ethiopia for a year where I ate injera and wat. I spent 3 months in Japan studying with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki and ate tempura, sushi, and sashimi!
Why do I tell you this? Because it reminds me how important our role is in giving students opportunities to experience cultures through music. No matter what level you teach, we open eyes and hearts. That’s no small task in this world that is struggling to be kind.
🪟 Mirrors and Windows
Someone once said that teachers hold up mirrors and help students look through windows. I love that idea - and that concept is part of my mission statement!
If you take time to explore my website, you’ll see how deeply I value diverse representation—from 227 composers from around the world to folk songs from every continent for elementary students. 👇
202+ Composers Around the World – Printable Slides
🧑🏫 Flexible display options: Use for bulletin boards, music history lessons, or classroom décor
✍️ Customizable template: Create additional composer posters to match the set
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And yes, I claim every continent but since Antarctica only has non-musical penguins, I used sea songs. Close enough to ice, right? 🐧❄️
🗓️ Looking Ahead
I have a whole collection of videos designed to expand students’ worldviews—though I’ll admit I haven’t done the best job using them consistently over the past two years.
My New Year’s resolution is to introduce Monday/Friday video time, with Fridays possibly becoming student-choice days. I’ll let you know how that turns out!
Take a look through my list and see if there’s something you can use.👇
I hope you had a wonderful break. Monday hit hard, but the students were so excited to be back that it quickly became fun—especially once the caffeine kicked in!
What do you have planned for January? I’ve always used this month as a chance to catch up and focus on those pesky techniques that tend to slip through the cracks during concert season!
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Edgar Degas
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To great teaching and great tunes!
- Lyda Osinga, MusicBox Education
