WARNING: After the 24:40 mark, the podcast contains a discussion about suicidal ideation. If you believe that this will be a trigger for you, stop listening at the 24:40 mark.

Episode 5 starts off with a short excerpt from Episode 4 in which John Churchville paraphrases an element of his teaching philosophy: “just listen to everything” as a sort of reminder of where we left off in Part 1 of our discussion with John about Soundtrap, teaching, and fostering musical education in the Ann Arbor Public School system.

Part 2 picks up more of less where we left off, however in this episode there’s discussion alone, unlike episode four which featured actual music instruction. We discuss how music education also serves, oftentimes, to allow students to grow on a personal level; to address and possibly even confront issues, work through feelings by channeling those thoughts into a musical creation. We also circle back to the importance of Soundtrap in this instruction process.

John discusses a tenet attributed to John Dewey, namely “the ownership of the impulse to create” and discusses how difficult that can be as an instructor to convey, but how he sees it as central to the creative process (and how it can be a struggle – albeit in a good way – to impart such a concept).

Consistent with one of John Dewey’s tenets “arriving at one goal is the starting point to another” you’ll hear how John helps his students to connect the dots – to move forward from where they were to wherever it is they are going musically. Moreover, you’ll hear about how John allows his students to see “the kitchen” of the music creation process, and how he was able to leverage his own musical group’s musicianship (those in the “C.A.R.Ma. Quartet”) to help further the musical education of his students.