KMEA ADVO-ANGLE: From KMEA Advocacy

Kelly Knedler, advocacy chair
Kelly Knedler, advocacy chair

WHERE KMEA MUSIC ADVOCACY IS HEADED…

I am very excited to announce that Kansas Music Educators Association has launched a new way to look at things in the area of Music Advocacy. I am proud to introduce The Advo-Angle! Following are some ideas we will begin implementing through KMEA Advocacy.

 

ADVOCACY ANGLEadvocacy logo

We have begun a new video series located on KMEA website under Advocacy [ksmea.org/advocacy] called “The Advo-Angle.” The logo to the right is a great way to quickly recognize “The Advo-Angle.” This series uses videos and articles about advocacy ideas, policies, strategies to think about and music advocacy news. This will be a great way to connect with KMEA and NAfME on a regular basis. The objective of The Advo-Angle is to give Music Educators the “Angle” on conversations, which steer toward the support of, or against, music education in our schools!

The Advo-Angle will involve our Students, Parents, Administrators, and Teachers, as well as the Business community through short videos and articles about Music Advocacy. The Advo-Angle is a great resource for Advocacy statements, ideas, or Quick Thoughts to be used in conversation or at public performances. The videos and audio recordings found there are files of students giving affirmation as to what music has done for them, or a simple statement of a measured music factoid. Some of which were recorded in various locations in “Our” towns (ie. Music Room, School, Theatre, Band Shell, Monument, etc.). Do you have a video you would like to creat for The Advo-Angle? If so, we would love to see it! Just send it to [advocacy@ksmea.org]. Also, look for “Buzz Phrases” such as “Hear is your M.A.P. to keeping music strong in your school [town, district]…” [M.A.P = Music Advocacy Point]. The Advo-Angle looks to build into an incredible reference website for Music Educators and the Advocacy for Music Education!

GET TO KNOW YOUR KMEA DISTRICT CHAIRPERSONS

We have functioning Advocacy Chairpersons in each of the six (Northeast, Southeast, North Central, South Central, Northwest, and Southwest), soon to be seven (East Central) districts. As the district mini-Convention and district festival season begins, please make sure to meet your district advocacy chairperson. Your chairperson will most likely be speaking at each of these events. The KMEA district Chairpersons are:

Remember, your State and District Advocacy Chairpersons are there for you to help those who might need Advocacy the most!

 MUSICAL INHERITANCE

I believe that most would agree that Music is a skill, craft, even a lifestyle, which lasts musicians a lifetime. Therefore, it is important that we create the idea of “Musical Inheritance” in Music Education and make the necessary Connections that “It is important to carry-on music education in our lives.” In this day and age, we are pulled in many directions, but music “connects” us! As humans we are always looking for ways to communicate with one another face-to-face and music allows us to do it. Many of us know the History of Music Education and that Formal Education was founded through Lowell Mason’s singing school. So in carrying on the tradition of teaching one another, we must easily connect as many music teachers as possible. This will allow us to keep music rich and vibrant in our schools, which need us the most. We will look for your help in passing on a rich Musical Inheritance to those in the next generations of teaching and learning!

 HOW DO WE PROMOTE MUSIC ADVOCACY?

We need to capture the attention of as many people as possible, both musicians and non-musicians…And, we’ll do that through social media. We will Tweet and post KMEA Advocacy ideas on Twitter, Facebook and other Social Media. We are looking to create a strong, resource-filled Kansas Music Advocacy page too. As mentioned before, we will send Bi-Weekly Music Advocacy Points (M.A.P.) through “The Advo-Angle” and create a Monthly or Bi-Weekly Twitter Chat about Music Advocacy. We need to engage each other in great teaching ideas and then help educate non-musicians of the importance of music education in the lives of their community and their students! Look for the #KMEAAdvoAngle on Twitter and Facebook!

FURTHERING COMMUNITY ORIENTED MUSIC ADVOCACY…

We know that capturing the attention of members of our Communities is very important! We are currently working on creating Memes for getting Communities, Parents, Students, Teachers, and Administrators involved in Music Advocacy. Digital slides for a PowerPoint-type Presentation have been created with “Quick Points” for Teachers to put in their Pre-Concert Announcements. These slides capture the attention of those attending concerts with “quick” statements like “Did You Know…OR…A Student involved in music….” These slides can be downloaded from our KMEA Advocacy page. This is just another great way to capture the attention of a supportive audience at a concert performance. Our next step is to put these slides together in a slide show presentation-in several formats-and it will be sent to all music teachers in Kansas to be used during their Pre-Performance announcements, if they choose to use it…And it will be created with the many levels of music education in mind, such as High School, Middle School and Elementary. This slide presentation will show how Music Education is important to a child’s development. These presentations will be short and will cover Talking Points most important to Kansas Music Education. Again, they will be in the form of Slides and Video to be used at each Music Teacher’s Discretion. Look for them soon!

MIKE QUILLING’S IDEAS ON WHO WE NEED INVOLVED?

Who is Mike Quilling? Mike Quilling is a person you should meet (I bet most readers already have met him)! He is a former President of KMEA and currently serves in two capacities, as the NAfME Southwest Division President and the KMEA Government Relations Chairperson. Mikes says, “Communication is the key to a successful Music Advocacy program.” He knows that a display of genuine hard-worked music presented by students of a community will begin this process!

Music’s success in our communities will need to involve our students, parents, teachers, administrators and the general community. “However,” Mike says, “A very influential group that we must contact and involve in the support of music education in our schools is our Kansas Legislators.” So, we will continue to be involved in Music at the Capitol. We will keep striving to make it better and more effective than the previous year’s endeavor! We need are looking to get more groups involved in the performances at the Capitol. A couple of ideas given to us were that we could create an Advocacy Splash on the Capitol and a Breakfast filled with music and Advocacy for our Kansas Law makers. We will definitely bring in people to talk to the legislators about music and to help reminisce about what music was and what it is in their lives too. We hope to see you at the Capitol in March, 2018!

INVOLVING OTHER GROUPS

As a final note…We also find it important that we do not forget to speak to School Administrators. We will make an effort to tailor some topics dealing with Music Advocacy information for Administrators, because we don’t seem to have a lot of it. And as we look to the future…We will dream BIG! We are working to create a Kansas Round-Table of Associations, Societies, etc. We will use the National Example as a Model. We believe that when all groups are on the same page, a single united statement is powerful, rather than many statements coming from different directions. This will also put a focus on what Kansan Musicians want in Music Education. The more that are involved, the more people we have in our Advocacy camp! This can include some partnerships with large and well-known music associations as well as individuals, who hold clout in organizations.

We are excited about the future of Music Advocacy in KMEA! We look forward to working with, beside and for the Music Teachers of Kansas! Make sure to attend the KMEA Music Advocacy Session at the Kansas Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop in February, 2018! See you there!

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