Rationale:

I spent this past summer working at a Title I elementary school in my hometown.

This experienced transformed my thinking as a music educator, because I finally saw
how specific topics we talk about in my education classes can be applied into a
real-world setting. It was no longer doing a scholarship reading for a class, it was doing
my research to help my students.
That being said, I noticed an area where I was lacking- both in knowledge and
practice: trauma-informed music education. Over half of the students I worked with this
past summer had been exposed to at least one kind of severe trauma. Many of my
students were survivors of domestic violence or had lost parents’ to drug addiction or
gang violence, all while continuing with school and everyday life. Many of my fellow
teachers were well-read on trauma informed education as a whole, but I had questions
about trauma-informed music education specifically, as music is such an emotional
stimulant for everyone, and I wanted to see how this can effect traumatized students.
I wanted to be able to help them in any way I could, and I wanted to learn about
other ways of helping these students cope with these traumas that differed from
“traditional” school trauma counseling. So, I started digging and found that, although
“trauma informed music education” wasn’t a well-researched topic, music therapy and
its effects on children is. This peaked my interest, and I decided I wanted to find a way
to include music therapy practices in my pedagogy. When I began researching, I found
articles that dealt with the creative processes of music in direct response to traumatic
events (McFerran and Teggelove; Davis) in addition to articles about the music making
process as a response to the symptoms of traumatic events (Mayers) and hope that
these articles point me in the right direction when it comes to creating my own trauma
informed music education curriculum.
Research Questions:

How can music educators use research from music therapy and trauma informed
general education pedagogy to craft a trauma-informed music education pedagogy?

What are common aspects of music education to include or avoid in a trauma-informed

music education classroom?

Citations:

Davis K. M. (2010). Music and the expressive arts with children experiencing trauma. J.
Creat. Mental Health 5,

McFerran, K., & Teggelove, K. (2011). Music Therapy with Young People in Schools:
After the Black Saturday Fires. ​Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy​, ​11​(1).
https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v11i1.285

Mayers, K.S. (1995). Songwriting as a way to decrease anxiety and distress in

traumatized children. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 22(5)