A Curriculum that Educators “Trust” and Students Love
By Kristin Clark Taylor
A “Safe Space.”
When Tammy Benedick first started using QuaverMusic in her classroom years ago, the music teacher at Hubbard Branch Elementary in Belton, Texas, admits she was a little hesitant.
“I’d never used a fully digital, cloud-based resource in my classroom before,” she explains. “Everything about it felt different and new.”
So Benedick began experimenting with the lessons and tools in the curriculum, and before she knew it — poof! — her hesitancy melted away as quickly as an ice cream cone on a hot summer day.
Benedick realizes now, in retrospect, that this cutting-edge resource had been carefully and intentionally designed “to put teachers who were new to this kind of technology — like me! — completely at ease, right from the very beginning.”
Even today, you can still hear the thrill, the respect, and perhaps even the quiet awe in her voice as she talks about QuaverMusic.
“I’m as excited today about having Quaver in my classroom as I was on the very first day I used it,” she says.
The Texas educator was, and still is, deeply impressed with Quaver’s easy maneuverability, but she also wants to send the message to teachers who are new to the resource that “getting to know the curriculum” is quite simple once you jump right in.
“What really helped me in the very beginning was being confident enough to just dive right in and see what all was in there!” she says.
“The first thing I did was go directly to Resource Creation, where I learned how to organize and consolidate all of my resources in one place.”
“This was game-changing,” she says, “because it gave me more time to focus on teaching and more time to spend with my students.”
While Benedick certainly appreciates the comfort, convenience, and customizability that Quaver affords, she mentions another benefit that is perhaps the most important of all: A sense of trust and safety.
“Technology doesn’t always feel safe,” she says with a hint of justifiable concern in her voice. “Quaver is a highly sophisticated platform, but I always feel safe using it.”
She offers an example.
“Quaver lets me embed You-Tube videos into my lessons, for instance, and when I’m using Quaver, I never have to worry about being bothered with ads and pop-ups … or being taken to a site I don’t want to go to.”
Put simply, she says, she’s grateful to have a resource that takes the worry out of technology.
“Quaver creates a safe space for me where I can kind of roam freely and do my own thing.”
Using Music to Teach Kindness, Compassion
Benedick bounces beautifully from subject to subject, discussing a few of the important principles she teaches that benefit her students not just inside her classroom but far beyond, in the wider world.
Principles like kindness and compassion.
Music, she strongly believes, is the perfect medium through which lessons about kindness and compassion can be taught.
More than anything, Benedick is grateful that Quaver, too, uses music to nurture and deepen these important human qualities.
Again, she shares her own classroom experiences to emphasize her point.
Benedick says that the Quaver song “He Had a Dream,” which celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a hands-down, all-time favorite in her classroom—across every age group and grade.
“I love that Quaver gives us lessons like this that reflect, through music, the living history of important figures like Martin Luther King,” she says in a voice filled with emotion.
“But the song focuses on more than just the man,” she adds.
“It also teaches us lessons about what it means to be kind and what it looks like to love one another … what we call ‘compassion.’”
Benedick proudly reports that her students request this song on a fairly regular basis, and that it’s a relevant history lesson all year round — not just during Black History Month.
“Many of the other classroom teachers have come to me to tell me how impressed they are with my students’ historical knowledge of Dr. King and the principles he believed in,” she says — proof positive that QuaverMusic’s carefully-designed lessons promote cross-curricular learning as well.
“Every time we sing songs like ‘He Had a Dream,’ we’re learning about a piece of history, but we’re also learning about kindness and compassion.”
Clearly, Benedick is passionate about using music as the medium to motivate, mold, and inspire her students in the classroom and far beyond.
And she uses QuaverMusic to get it all done.
Want to accomplish similar goals in your classroom?
Go to QuaverEd.com/Music to start your journey.
Kristin Clark Taylor is an author and an editor.
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