If I Can’t Teach this Song, what Should I Teach? Anti-Racist Music Pedagogy (30 Minutes)

Wanda Vásquez García is a general music educator, choir director, advocate, and clinician. A native of the Dominican Republic currently living in Colorado, she holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, the first University in the American Continent, and a Master's Degree in Music Education with an emphasis on choral music from the University of Northern Colorado. Currently, she is the general music teacher at Escuela Binlingüe Pioneer, Lafayette Colorado. In addition to teaching, she is also a Co-Coordinator of the Choral Database for the Institute for Composer Diversity and a Music Assistant for the Colorado Children’s Chorale. Wanda is also a published co-author of the Bilingual Children's book “From Across the Street”. A story about the Dominican Folkloric Music “Los Palos”. The pursuit of creating a Diverse, Inclusive, Anti-bias, and Anti-racist music classroom for her students is what brings her to this work as a teacher leader. “Growing up, I didn’t feel represented in the music I studied, sang, and played while a student at the Conservatory in the Dominican Republic. It is this desire to provide a different opportunity for my students that brought me to the music education field.”