In the study, Aaptations of music educators in primary and secondary school due to COVID-19: The experience in Spain, 335 music educators were surveyed in Spain. Of the 335, 90 (almost ⅓) of which taught secondary music education. The researchers were interested in learning how music educators adapted to the sudden shift to “emergency remote teaching” which is distinctively different from online learning. Emergency remote teaching (as we probably all experienced) was what we were sort of thrust into, without a real plan or curriculum in place. My big takeaway from the study is: “COVID-19 represented an opportunity and a threat for music education” (p. 141).

Anyone who just taught during this pandemic will know that this is a no-brainer, and the study confirmed what most of us probably already knew. During emergency remote teaching, there wasn’t a lot of playing going on. But the need for technology increased exponentially, consequently, younger teachers tended to do better in this scenario (probably because, generally speaking, they were more comfortable with technology). Younger teachers struggled, but struggled less. Also - there was an incredibly significant reliance on the use of video (such as flipped lessons, and instructional videos). But probably most importantly, teachers made a conscious effort to connect with more of their students individually, and emphasized the importance of social emotional learning - creating assignments that allowed students to use materials they had at home, and to express themselves in non-traditional ways.

Many teachers expressed a fear that the future of education (in Spain) would de-emphasize the importance of music in the overall curriculum for children. As a community of music educators, we may need to be wary of this as education moves forward into a post-COVID era. Obviously, most teachers indicated that this online learning situation was definitely not ideal, they definitely missed the in-person interaction with students. However, most of them also indicated that they learned something valuable as a result of this experience.

As terrible as this whole thing was, maybe there are some positive takeaways for our future practices. Specifically, we may see more opportunities in the areas of social-emotional learning, creative assessments, creativity (composition/improvisation), and the integration of technology.