Maine Motif Issue 1 Volume I | Page 45

General Music, Pre K-5 Report By Catherine Newell, [email protected] Hello, PreK-5 music teachers! Likely very few of you know me, so I will take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Catherine Newell and I live in Topsham. I got my BME at UMaine, and my advanced certificate in Kodály Methodology from the Kodály Music Institute at New England Conservatory. I previously taught elementary music in RSU4 and MSAD#51, and for the past four years I have mostly been home with my young daughter, who was born in 2012. I have remained involved in MMEA and District 3 (where I live) by managing our Orff-based Elementary Honors Festival (you can read about it here), and participating in workshops and conferences put on by NAfME, MMEA, and BAKE (our local Kodály chapter). My primary goal for this school year is to close the “access gap” for professionals in Maine. Currently, geographically-isolated teachers who work outside of the southern part of our state have less access to professional development and peer collaboration opportunities. The other “access gap” we have is primarily financial. Some school systems are refusing to pay for their elementary music teachers to attend workshops and conferences. Teachers who cover more than just elementary school (PK-8, PK-12, etc) are rarely released to attend our General Music workshop in the fall because of their many school-day commitments with older students. I plan to use technology and social media to close this “access gap” as much as possible – creating free online resources that can be used in the classroom or as part of teacher training. I have started a (MMEA-unaffiliated) Facebook page for elementary-level music teachers: "PK-5 General Music Maine." The group’s photo is a dandelion head with music note seeds blowing away. It is a “closed group”, which means you need to request to join and be approved by a Group Administrator (me). If you request to join, please send me a private message indicating where you teach so that I know you are a real person and not a scammer. Because it is a “closed group”, posts are not public and will not be seen by people outside of the group. If you do not personally belong to Facebook, you may consider making a Teacher Page (as opposed to a personal account). This would allow you to have a presence in our group and other Facebook teacher groups. If you are unsure how to do this, please email me and I will help you. I have started a blog as well that is