Music teacher Jewel Casselman is ending her illustrious 34-year career on an ultimate high note. Casselman was recently awarded the prestigious 2023 Juno MusiCounts award for Best Music Teacher in the country \u2013a testament to her unwavering commitment to music education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jewel Casselman, who teaches music at Lakewood School in Winnipeg, says the experience of winning the award has been surreal. \u2018When they said \u201cAnd the winner is\u2026\u2019 I was floored. I was not expecting it at all,\u201d says Casselman, who plans on retiring after this school year. \u201cWhat a way to wind up a career. I still wake up in the morning and go \u201cI won a Juno. It\u2019s kind of crazy, to be recognized nationally that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past the music teacher award has been handed out to high school and middle school teachers, \u2026\u201dbecause they can just do things that elementary kids can\u2019t do\u2013like go on trips and compete in Jazz festivals. But it doesn\u2019t mean that the elementary students are doing anything less important,\u201d says Casselman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finding their Voice<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casselman has long been passionate about the importance of music education for elementary kids. \u201cIt\u2019s better now, but when I first started teaching a lot of kindergarten classes didn\u2019t get music, and I really fought for it and said \u2018No, this is when they need it!\u2019. If you get them in Kindergarten you have them for all those elementary years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor a lot of these kids, I\u2019m their first exposure to any kind of formal music education,\u201d says Casselman. \u201cI teach them how to find the beat and how to find their singing voice, the difference between high and low notes, composing, the sounds and silences in music\u2026 I try to plant these little seeds and for those six years I get to watch their world grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casselman has seen a few students become professional musicians when they\u2019re older, but more important to her is seeing them appreciate the importance of music, arts and culture. \u201cWhich in turn influences how they will live their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The genre of music that kids listen to is not that important. \u201cMusic is everywhere, it\u2019s all around them. I ask them if they\u2019ve listened to how much music there is in their video games? Someone composed that,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had kids bring me rap songs they want me to listen to, and I personally think good rap is an art form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s really funny because a student will come to me and say \u201cI just found this new band, it\u2019s called AC\/DC. And I\u2019m like \u2018Wow I\u2019ll have to try them\u2019,\u201d she laughs. \u201cBecause to them it\u2019s brand new and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Orff Philosophy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This excitement is what has carried Casselman through her long career. She\u2019s based her teaching on the Orff philosophy\u2013a child centered way of learning that involves singing, playing, movement and percussion instruments. Since 2009, she\u2019s also been teaching university level courses in Orff during the summer months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her \u2018whole child\u2019 teaching extends to her special education students. Casselman says she tries to find time in her schedule every week when she can bring kids into her room and just let them explore sounds in a low pressure environment. \u201cSometimes we just turn down all the lights and just have really quiet music playing and they can just play without distraction. Music is a great form of communication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casselman says some of her favorite messages come from parents of neurodivergent kids. \u201cI had one little boy who at the start of school couldn\u2019t even have music on in the house, he would go and turn it off. He really struggled in kindergarten and Grade 1, but then he started staying in the music room longer and longer. He became more involved. And we came to the end of the year where we had an assembly and I brought his mom into the school and she watched her son, who hated music, stand in front of the entire school and perform. That\u2019s the power of music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
COVID Years Especially Challenging<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casselman has long been involved with the MMEA SAGE group and says that while music education is fairly strong in Manitoba, the COVID years were especially challenging. \u201cTeaching online was quite hard. And then when we came back to school, I taught for a whole year off of a cart, because my room was not large enough to have everybody two meters apart. So I loaded everything onto a cart and walked from classroom to classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She estimates that during 2021 she walked all the way to Vancouver. \u201cI was averaging 20-25 thousand steps a day,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was really a couple of years of chaos. Music teachers really had to think outside the box\u2013we couldn\u2019t sing or play most instruments.\u201d Popsicle friends became Casselman\u2019s best friend that year, and that\u2019s what the kids used to make rhythms, along with a couple of other things they kept in a little bag in their desks, because they couldn\u2019t share anything. \u201cI know one teacher who taught outside all year long \u2013 winter included. You had to get creative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music Education Vital<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casselman believes that music should be one of the \u201cR\u2019s\u201d taught in every school. \u201cBecause it\u2019s vital. It\u2019s one of the core subjects because music is math, music is language arts, music is social studies, music is science\u2013it covers all those things. There\u2019s been many studies done about music and memory and retention. Gross motor skills, fine motor skills, it\u2019s all there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While backstage at the Junos, Casselman says she was approached by artists who congratulated her and told her that this is the most important award of the evening, because they wouldn\u2019t be here today without teachers like her. And when she returned to school she was met with a stack of congratulations cards, flowers, and lots of kids excited to hear about her adventure. \u201cThe kids just stormed me saying they missed me so much. That was better than the Juno.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wisdom for Future Music Teachers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With retirement looming, Casselman says the most important bit of wisdom she can impart to the next generation of music teachers is to \u201cHave a thick skin, and a good sense of humour. Don\u2019t be afraid to ask for help, especially in the beginning. We have a small but wonderful community of music educators in this province\u2013reach out to your colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is not a job you can leave when you walk out of the room. It really has to be a passion, you have to really want to do it. And I am really going to miss it. I love the school, and I love those kids. That\u2019s why I get up every morning to go to work\u2013to go see those kids. They just inspire me to be a better person every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Originally published in the Spring 2023 issue of the MB Teacher<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Music teacher Jewel Casselman is ending her illustrious 34-year career on an ultimate high note. Casselman was recently awarded the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","post-thumbnail-displayed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1635,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/1635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbteach.org\/mtscms\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}