Preservation Hall Lessons Webinar Series: What We've Learned
As the daily lives of students, educators and musicians around the world remained in limbo due to coronavirus, the 2021 Preservation Hall Lessons webinar series kept us connected from afar.
The five-part series, free for teachers, parents and music therapists working with students with disabilities, provided actionable tips on empowering students through music – and strategies to include all students in the joy of making music.
Read on for recaps of all five of these fascinating discussions with our expert panelists, including Preservation Hall musician and special education teacher Will Smith, and Meredith Sharpe, New Orleans-based Neurologic Music Therapist and adjunct professor of Music Therapy at Loyola University, who together led the five discussions alongside guest panelists specializing in differing areas of disability awareness, education, music and community.
March Webinar
Music & Sensory Integration with New Orleans Rhythms
The first webinar of the New Orleans Music & Art in Special Education series, led by panelists Meredith Sharpe, a neurologic music therapist, and Will Smith, renowned Preservation Hall trumpeter, bandleader, and special education teacher in New Orleans, explores the science behind sensory integration, types of Sensory Processing Disorders, and the effects these disorders have on students of varying ages. Panelists also discuss ways in which music can assist students of all abilities in achieving mind and body regulation, self-awareness, and productive classroom learning, through percussive drumming, singing songs, humming, clapping, tapping, or moving to a beat.
April Webinar
The Preservation Hall Experience: Designing a Successful Learning Environment
This webinar, hosted by guest panelist Bonny Dieterich alongside Will Smith and Meredith Sharpe, explores ways teachers can design fun, accessible spaces conducive to learning that meet the needs of students with differing abilities. Participants analyze classroom set-ups and musical cues for transitioning in, out, and around the classroom, gaining an in-depth understanding of strategies for fostering a safe and conducive learning space for students with disabilities and students who use mobility devices. Guest panelist Bonny Dieterich is a teacher, disability advocate, wheelchair user and author of Recess Magic – a children’s book about kindness and inclusion at school.
May Webinar
Music and Mindfulness with New Orleans Rhythm & Blues
In this webinar, Meredith and Will are joined by school counselor and professional development leader Ashley Bell to discuss how mindfulness practices in the classroom, along with music, can be beneficial for students of all abilities – especially when it comes to productivity, social-emotional learning and personal growth. Participants are introduced to concepts like Zones of Regulation, a sliding scale model which can assist students in identifying their readiness to learn. Panelists also offer strategies to help students achieve self-awareness through forms of self-expression, like writing, movement, music, art, dance and improvisation.
June Webinar
Thinking Outside the Box: Adapting New Orleans Jazz Instruments
In this webinar, panelists discuss how to adapt, invent and hand-make instruments for students of all ages and abilities to use in the classroom. Panelist and special education teacher Will Smith shares and demonstrates several examples for simple, home-made instruments his students enjoy using, including a tissue box guitar, claves made from wooden dowels, and hand drums made from tin cans and packing tape.
Neurologic music therapist Meredith Sharpe also shows us some of the specialized, adaptive instruments she uses in therapeutic sessions with individuals with physical or mental disabilities: an extra-large guitar pick for easy strumming, drum mallets with hand straps that don’t require the ability to grip, and miniature tambourines and bells that strap onto the wrist or foot.
Guest panelists Louis Ford, a Preservation Hall musician, music educator and the Curriculum Developer of Preservation Hall Lessons, along with Kate Lacour of NOLArts and the Stomptroopers, also share their expertise on working with students of all abilities in various musical settings.
July Webinar
Join the Secondline: Adapting Movements & Mobility Devices in the Classroom
In this webinar, guest panelists MeLinda Ford, an instrumental music teacher and saxophonist, and Dr. Felicia Lively, a music education teacher and arts advocate, join Will and Meredith to discuss ways to adapt movements in the classroom – to not only accommodate the needs of students with differing abilities – but to truly make those students feel comfortable, at ease, included in the lesson, and ready to learn. The use of mobility devices in the classroom and ways to minimize physical separation in the classroom for students who use these devices was discussed, as well as these devices’ role in the classroom, while making music, and during students’ day-to-day activities.
Preservation Hall Lessons adaptations for special education and inclusive classrooms are now available for FREE to teachers and music educators!
Created by New Orleans Music & Art in Special Education webinar series panelist Meredith Sharpe, these adaptation documents guide teachers through each lesson plan on the lessons.preshallfoundation.org platform through the lens of inclusion and accessibility for students with physical and mental disabilities.
We are so grateful to Meredith for sharing this information with educators around the world to ensure ALL students are included in the joy of making music in the classroom!
You can locate these resources within each Lesson under “Instructor Notes" at lessons.preshallfoundation.org/lessons:
Click HERE to explore the Elements of Music Lesson Adaptation
Click HERE to explore the Rhythm & Beat Lesson Adaptation
Click HERE to explore the “Blue Monday” Lesson Adaptation
Click HERE to explore Meredith’s guide to Adaptive Movements
Click HERE to explore Meredith’s guide to Adaptive Instruments
We are so grateful to the outstanding panelists who lent their time and expertise to this project:
Will Smith
Meredith Sharpe
Bonny Dieterich
Louis Ford
Ashley Bell
Kate Lacour
MeLinda Ford
Dr. Felicia Lively