Before it was popular, Kate Phillips, Grant Avenue Elementary School’s PK-5 Music Teacher, was implementing culturally responsive lessons in her classroom. “As a white teacher originally from a suburban Midwest community, it is essential that my Bronx students engage with their own musical cultures in authentic ways,” she exclaims. “I rely on resources from culture bearers — Carnegie Hall’s Musical Explorers video lessons, for example, are great — and input from students on the artists, knowledge and skills that they want to learn about in a given unit, whether we are studying hip hop, Freedom Songs, bomba and plena, or any other music with which students already have expertise and home experience.”
In addition to emphasizing students’ music cultures, Phillips also teaches her students leadership skills. “Each year, our school dance and music programs engage a select group of 5th-grade students to participate in an Arts Council,” she says.
The members of the council meet throughout the year to help guide concert theme selection and repertoire choices. They also assist with performance logistics like decorations and ushering. “Our school concerts have transformed for the better thanks to their contributions, energy and creative artistic visions,” Phillips says proudly.
She encourages all students to bring her ideas for repertoire, activities, units, anything. “The spark for many concert performances or classroom instrumental pieces have come from students sharing an obsession with a particular viral TikTok dance or YouTube artist, which tends to inspire the whole class to engage enthusiastically in music learning,” Philips says with a smile. “I’m grateful for my students’ constant well of ideas and suggestions.”
Phillips herself has used her creativity in different ways at Grant Avenue Elementary — she wrote an original musical for the 5th-grade production. “The educator and musical theater nerd in me was inspired to reimagine the folktale ‘Stone Soup’ in a Bronx block-party setting,” she explains.
She elicited feedback on plot points, lyrics and other story elements from students and then wrote the songs and libretto with a colleague, drawing on past production successes for structure, songs and staging. “We saw an incredible jump in student buy-in and commitment on this production, and we replicated the success with a second original musical in 2018,” Phillips says. “The process provides a fantastic creative outlet for my artist-self and strengthens my relationships and insights with my students — truly a win-win!”
At this phase of her career, Phillips says that one of her greatest passions is collaborating with colleagues through workshops, mentoring and professional development. As a New York City Public Schools professional development facilitator and team leader, she has hosted two student teachers and acted as a new teacher mentor for two arts educators in her school community. “In each instance, the process of mentoring and sharing expertise has strengthened my own teaching and awareness of my craft,” she explains. “It has built strong bonds between myself and fellow educators. These ongoing relationships continue to nourish me and my practice.”
