So how did I get here?

Right, so apparently, I’m a blogger now!  Well unfortunately in this day and age, short and fast content has become the norm and I’ve been finding it difficult to put all my ideas into a 90 second video or Instagram post so I’ve decided blogs are the way to go (I’m feeling very Tumblr Helena circa 2012). However, I really do believe I have a lot of ideas that could help other teachers who maybe don’t have the skills or the time to acquire the skills, to incorporate music into their classroom on a more frequent and meaningful basis.

So how did I get here?

In Ireland and I know a lot of other countries around the world, music specialists in primary schools (elementary for my US readers), are non-existent. It is down to the classroom teacher to teach music, and some are lucky enough to have previous experience. I had a fantastic teacher in primary school on two separate occasions who happened to play the piano and harp and during those two years in school, I can honestly say I learned more in our music lessons than the other six years combined.

After I graduated from my master’s degree in music education, I flew out to Dubai and began working as a primary music specialist in a large international school and it hit me… There is far too much expectation on classroom teachers. Not only do they need to know core subjects such as Mathematics, English, Science etc. If they don’t have specialists in the school, they are expected to teach PE, Music, Art and so much more. How?! How can anyone retain all of that.

And so, Music for Mini Musicians was born! My main goal is to try to create content that can be used by any teacher in any scenario and create meaningful learning in music classes without the teacher having to spend hours learning material and lesson planning. Music is so important, we use it at every important event throughout our lives, we use it to connect, it’s the worlds universal language. Imagine we could inspire more musicians and creatives in the future. But that would have to start with the little people we have in front of us today and the people that teach them to be mini musicians.

Helena 🎵