Looking back on 2023 with gratitude
Our 2023 Beacon Scholarship winner, Christina Reardon, is an ACEMM success story of personal and professional growth - funded by grassroots efforts and donors like you!
When I applied for the ACEMM scholarship I stated that I wanted to “learn from and with other music educators who also feel passionately about the connection of music and movement and bring those ideas back to my students.” I had no idea how much that would be the case until I met the incredible fourteen people I got to spend the week with. Each of us brought unique perspectives, strengths, and personal challenges with us to the Masterclass. Together we worked to embrace what we loved about ourselves, to accept the parts of us we cannot change, and to build each other up to be the best music and movement educators we could be. Through self-reflection we wrote a variety of “I Am” statements that we later turned into poems to share.
Through my lens as an educator, I am bringing back many wonderful ideas to my students. I have new ideas for student-created choreography, for adding movement to poems and words to movement, for ways to change and elaborate Orff Schulwerk Volumes pieces to fit our class and the students in it, and how to play with meter, tempo, melody, and form to help my students create. This year, classroom is full with new ideas and a renewed sense of purpose as a music and movement educator.
It was through my training in the Schulwerk that I truly came to understand and love the relationship that music and movement have. This masterclass reminded me of that beautiful relationship and how special it is to both me and my students.
Thank you ACEMM for this incredible opportunity!
Christina Reardon
ACEMM’s mission is remove roadblocks between elemental music educators and the formative and transformative experiences that have lift up and connect us as teachers, mentors, and human beings. Our Beacon Scholarships and Spark Grants exist for the sole purpose of funding the realization of an educator’s potential. Our recipients, like Christina, have used funds to pay for Levels Training, attend local and national conferences, enroll in immersive PD locally, nationally, and abroad, and to bring big ideas for their programs to fruition. For over a decade, we have enabled that formative transformation by investing in our recipients, who in turn have enriched our greater musical and educational community locally, nationally, and internationally.
Please consider ACEMM as you plan your End of Year Giving. Your donation is more than a monetary contribution; it's a symphony of possibilities. With 100% of your generous support dedicated to Beacon Scholarship and Spark Grant payouts, every dollar will lift up and enable fellow educators’ access to priceless collaboration, mentorship, and development.
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