Making Practice into Policy: Bridging, Buffering, and Building in Our Schools

Abstract

This article describes concrete ways music teachers might engage in policy at the school level and how such engagements strengthen our work and our schools. By making decisions about where to build bridges to policies that further our work and where to buffer from those that impede our vision, we as teachers assert greater control in policy making as it impacts our classrooms. Such policy strategy can be enacted individually and also in collaboration with colleagues in our schools to build a more robust space for policy making on the ground. Whenever teachers create new materials or practices or share ways of thinking explicitly connected to certain policies, we shift the nature of these policies locally and also enlarge our roles in policy.