You Belong Here

The concept of belonging keeps appearing in my world: In my research, in my conversations with colleagues, and most recently through the theme at this year’s VMEA conference.

I’ve found myself mulling belonging quite a bit lately because of its multiple appearances: while driving, washing dishes, and completing other mundane tasks.

But I have also found myself questioning belonging at my school events. The music events I take my students to, the music meetings I attend on my own, and even gatherings of music educators.

Is there more depth to this than meets the eye?

For some time, I have wondered about community among music educators. What does it mean to be part of a community? What does it look like to move through discomfort together? What would happen if vulnerability were viewed not as a professional weakness, but as a fundamentally human strength?

Perhaps belonging is a piece of this conversation that we have yet to fully explore.

Because there is a difference between having a place in a community and feeling that you belong in it.

But how do you describe that feeling of belonging?

You can hold the position, earn the degree, attend the conferences, and participate in the professional organizations. You can do everything that suggests you are part of the field. But if you cannot see yourself reflected in the spaces you occupy, if your perspectives are dismissed or your questions are met with resistance, do you truly belong?

I wonder.

What happens when the way you approach music education differs from the way it has traditionally been done?

Do you truly belong?

Music education is a field steeped in tradition. Many of those traditions are meaningful. They connect generations of educators, preserve musical practices, and give us a shared sense of purpose. But traditions can also become so familiar that we stop questioning them. We begin to mistake what is familiar for what is necessary, and what has always been for what must always be.

For those who question these traditions, belonging can become complicated.

What happens when an educator challenges an established practice because they believe there is a better way to serve students? What happens when someone asks a difficult question, advocates for a different perspective, or suggests that something we have always done might not be working for everyone?

Are they welcomed into the conversation? Or are they made to feel as though they have somehow stepped outside the boundaries of the community?

Is there tension? Discord? Or is the conversation harmonious?

I wonder how often belonging becomes conditional upon our willingness to fit in.

Are we building a community that welcomes people into the music education profession, or are we building a community in which people must learn how to fit into predetermined traditions and teaching stereotypes?

The distinction matters. One asks us to make room for people as they are. The other asks people to adapt to the room that already exists.

And if belonging depends on fitting a particular mold, what happens to those who don’t?

This feels especially important in a profession that so often finds itself advocating for its own place in education. We know what it feels like to fight for recognition, resources, time, and the opportunity to demonstrate the value of what we do. We know what it means to feel misunderstood by people outside our field.

Yet I wonder whether, in our efforts to establish and protect our place in education, we sometimes forget to examine the spaces we create for one another.

Are we offering the same openness, curiosity, and understanding to our colleagues, our friends, that we hope others will extend to us?

I wonder.

And how did we get here?

I remember a time when our professional community seemed more cohesive. Or perhaps that is simply how I remember it. Maybe the connections were stronger, or maybe we were less aware of the distance between us.

Or maybe it has been this way all along.  

Either way, I find myself wondering when the sense of community began to change.

Was it the cliché question of COVID? Did the isolation of those years disrupt relationships that we had once taken for granted? Did we lose the informal conversations, shared experiences, and small moments of connection that help sustain a professional community?

Was it the turnover in our profession? As educators moved into new positions, left the classroom, or entered the field, did the relationships that once connected us begin to change? Did we lose some of the shared history that helped us feel part of something larger than our individual programs?

Or have there been other forces at work? Have divisions always existed but seemingly less visible? Did differences in teaching philosophy, professional priorities, access to resources, or the expectations placed on music educators gradually create distance between us?

I don’t know.

Perhaps it wasn’t one thing. Perhaps communities don’t fracture all at once. Perhaps they become a little less connected with each missed conversation, each unspoken disagreement, each moment when we choose the familiar over the uncomfortable.

And perhaps we don’t always recognize what we have lost until we begin to feel the absence of it.

Which makes what I witnessed at this year’s conference all the more interesting.

There were more people in attendance than the year before. As I moved through the conference, I sensed a desire for authentic connection, a willingness to be vulnerable, and a need for honest communication. There seemed to be an appetite for something beyond the familiar conversations about programs, performances, and the day-to-day demands of teaching.

It felt bittersweet.

There was hope in seeing people joyously come together, but there was also an awareness of those who were missing. I found myself wondering whether we were beginning to reconnect because we were finally recognizing how much we needed one another.

Perhaps the world around us feels increasingly uncertain. Perhaps the challenges facing education and our profession have become more difficult to navigate alone. Perhaps we are recognizing that the work we do cannot be sustained by individual effort alone, that our students need us to be supported, and that our field needs a stronger foundation if it is going to continue to grow.

Perhaps we are simply human beings seeking connection in a time when connection feels increasingly important.

Or perhaps it is a combination of all these things.

But if we are beginning to recognize the importance of community again, I can't help but wonder: Why weren’t more people there?

Who couldn’t attend due to a conflict? Who wasn’t supported by their administration to go? Who couldn’t justify the time, expense, or energy required to participate? Who wanted to be there but couldn’t make it happen?

And who chose not to come because they didn’t believe they would find anything meaningful waiting for them?

Still, I wonder whether there are people in our profession who no longer see a place for themselves in our professional community. People who don’t believe their voices will be valued. People who have tried to contribute and felt dismissed, or who have learned that challenging the norm can come at a professional cost.

How many of us have decided that it is easier to keep our thoughts to ourselves than to risk being misunderstood?

How many perspectives and how much new knowledge have we lost because of that?

And how many incredible people has our community missed interacting with?

As I thought about the conference, I also found myself wondering whether those of us who did attend were truly connecting beyond our familiar circles.

Were we seeking out educators from different parts of the state, people who taught in different settings, or colleagues whose experiences and perspectives differed from our own? Or, much like students in a lunchroom, were we gravitating toward the tables that felt most familiar?

There is nothing wrong with finding comfort in familiarity. We need people who understand our experiences, and there is value in the relationships we have built over time. Shared experiences can make us feel understood in a profession that sometimes feels isolating.

But what do we miss when we never venture beyond those familiar circles?

A school lunchroom can be full of students and still leave someone feeling alone. A professional conference can be full of music educators and still leave someone wondering where they fit.

Perhaps the responsibility isn’t simply to encourage those on the outside to be brave enough to approach a table. Perhaps those of us who are comfortable at our tables need to look up, make room, and recognize that the strength of our community depends on more than the people already gathered around us.

What might we learn from someone whose teaching assignment looks nothing like our own? What might we gain from a conversation with an educator whose philosophy challenges our own? What possibilities might emerge if we listened to someone who approaches music education in a way we have never considered?

We often talk about wanting our students to think critically, take creative risks, and approach unfamiliar ideas with curiosity. We encourage them to make mistakes, ask questions, and learn from one another.

Do we offer ourselves the same opportunities?

If we want our field to grow, we must be willing to examine the traditions we protect and the assumptions we carry. We must acknowledge that some of the ways we have always done things may no longer serve us, our students, or the future of music education as well as we think they do.

That acknowledgment is difficult. Change is uncomfortable. It asks us to reconsider what we believe, to examine our own assumptions, and to accept that good intentions do not always lead to good outcomes.

It also asks us to recognize that different does not necessarily mean wrong.

Perhaps different is precisely what our profession needs.

Perhaps the voices that challenge our established practices are the voices that can help us see what we have been missing. Perhaps new perspectives can help us navigate a changing educational landscape, reach students we have struggled to serve, and imagine possibilities that our familiar ways of thinking have prevented us from seeing.

Now, that doesn’t mean every new idea is a good one, or that tradition has no place in our future. It means that ideas should be considered on their merits, that questions should be welcomed, and that disagreement should be an opportunity to think more deeply rather than a reason to withdraw from one another.

Can we bring our whole selves to the table? Can we disagree without questioning one another’s commitment to students or to music? Can we present an unfamiliar idea without worrying that it will make us an outsider in our own profession?

Can we be honest about what isn’t working while remaining open to the possibility that someone else might have a better way?

I think these are questions worth asking, especially now.

Because the possibility of something better seems worth the discomfort.

A stronger professional community. More authentic relationships. A field that is better equipped to serve an increasingly diverse population of students. A profession in which educators can disagree, ask questions, and challenge one another without having to wonder whether doing so will cost them their place in the community.

These things seem worth working toward.

And perhaps the work begins with something much smaller than we imagine.

It begins when we notice who is standing alone at a conference or event. When we ask a colleague what they think before assuming we know their answer. When we listen to an idea we initially disagree with, resist the urge to become defensive, and ask a few more questions before deciding that it has no merit.

It begins when we recognize that a colleague can approach music education differently from us and still care just as deeply about students, music, and the future of our profession.

It begins when we reach beyond our familiar circles, not because we are obligated to, but because we understand that our community becomes stronger when we learn from people whose experiences differ from our own.

And it begins when we make room for those who have been hesitant to return.

Not by asking them to leave their concerns at the door, conform to existing expectations, or prove that they belong. But by being willing to listen to why they felt disconnected in the first place.

Because belonging cannot simply be declared. It has to be experienced.

It is built through the small, ordinary interactions that communicate whether someone is valued. It is built when disagreement does not automatically become division, when questions are met with curiosity rather than judgment, and when people can acknowledge uncertainty without fearing that it will undermine their credibility.

It is built when we understand that we do not all have to approach music education in the same way to share a commitment to its future.

I keep being presented with the concept of belonging in multiple ways. VMEA’s conference theme revolved around it.

You Belong Here.

It is a powerful statement. It carries weight.

But I wonder if the responsibility for its significance sits at the feet of all.

If we want people to believe they belong, we must consider what we are doing to make that belief possible. We must examine the traditions we protect, the voices we elevate, the conversations we avoid, and the assumptions we carry into our professional relationships.

We must be willing to create a community in which belonging does not depend on agreement, conformity, or a shared definition of what it means to be a “good” music educator.

And we must remember that our students are watching.

They see how we interact with our colleagues. They notice how we respond to differences of opinion, how we treat people whose perspectives challenge our own, and whether we practice the openness and empathy we encourage them to demonstrate in our classrooms.

The communities we build as educators do not exist in isolation from the communities we build with students. The way we treat one another becomes part of the example we set for the next generation.

If we want students to feel that they belong in music, then perhaps we must first be willing to examine whether we have created a profession in which its own members can experience that same sense of belonging.

I don’t think belonging requires us to agree on everything. I don’t think it requires us to abandon the traditions that matter or to accept every new idea without question.

I think it asks something more difficult of us.

It asks us to remain curious. To listen when it would be easier to dismiss. To be honest when silence would be more comfortable. To recognize that growth sometimes begins with the uncomfortable realization that we might need to change.

Most of all, it asks us to see one another as people before we see one another as colleagues, competitors, conductors, directors, or representatives of a particular philosophy of music education.

We are people who care deeply about what we do. People who want our students to thrive. People who want music to matter in the lives of others. We will disagree about how to accomplish those things, and we should. Those differences can be opportunities for growth rather than reasons to retreat into our respective corners.

So how do we move forward from here?

How do we sustain the connections made at a conference or event and carry them into the everyday work of our profession? How do we make space for the conversations that are difficult but necessary? How do we invite those who feel disconnected to return, while also taking responsibility for the conditions that may have pushed them away?

I don’t have all the answers. I might not have any answers.

But perhaps we begin by opening the door. By pulling up another chair. By asking a question and being willing to hear the real answer. By allowing someone to be different from us without making that difference a barrier to connection.

Perhaps we begin by stepping outside our own comfort zones, not just for the betterment of ourselves, but for our students, our profession, and the communities we serve.

Perhaps belonging begins long before we say the words You belong here.

Perhaps it begins when our actions make it possible for someone to believe us.