Frequently Asked Questions

Trade Winds Ensemble (TWE) is a group of professional musicians who teach workshops incorporating music composition, songwriting, interactive games, and creative writing to children around the world. We often field questions about our work and our mission, and we would love to answer some of those most commonly asked questions. We are constantly evolving, and continually reflecting on these questions and our responses to them. 

What makes TWE unique? Many musical groups and initiatives prioritize social justice and aim to teach music to children who traditionally have not had access to arts education

We take a strong stance against western music’s pedagogical tendencies toward white supremacy, European hegemony, colonization, and oppression. For this reason, we do not teach using traditional music notation; we do not typically teach students how to play musical instruments; we do not actively encourage our students to go into careers in the arts in areas that do not have a job market to support this. Instead, we focus on communicating and teaching the practical skills artists and musicians use. As teachers and leaders, we strive to be empathetic, creative, culturally responsive, open, antiracist, and trauma-informed. 

What do you do to make sure your teaching spaces are welcoming and affirming?

The core tenets of our teaching are all rooted in uplifting our students’ unique voices. We aim to cultivate brave and inclusive spaces for our students, and honor their lived experiences. We acknowledge the damage colonialist education systems have done, and aim to disrupt this cycle in big and small ways to the best of our ability. One small tangible example of this is our practice of sitting or standing in a circle alongside our students as we teach, rather than separating ourselves from them by standing while they sit, or relegating students to traditional classroom-style rows.

Our core teaching values are Agency, Experimentation, Equity, Diversity, and Artistry.

Agency
We aim to give our students agency over musical decisions and the content of their music education, disrupt ingrained Educational structures (including the banking method described by Paulo Freire in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed), and provide contrast to the oppression students experience in society and in their everyday lives.

Experimentation 
Overemphasis on discipline, excellence, tradition, and precision perpetuates European hegemonic practice. Instead, our classrooms are designed as laboratories for musical experimentation, mistakes, revision, and PLAY!

Equity
We strive to meet students where they are regardless of their prior experience or access to educational materials. We honor the knowledge and experience our students already have, and seek to validate and amplify their voices.

Diversity
Exposing students to music written exclusively by white composers is an embodiment of white supremacy in education. Instead, we celebrate diverse artists and introduce our students to a wide range of musical styles.

Artistry
While we encourage artistry and love the collaborative art we make with our students, our aim is not necessarily to teach students to become artists professionally, but rather how to think like artists. Inspired by Artists Striving to End Poverty’s similar concept, we don’t want to encourage students to pursue careers in the arts if they do not live in communities and systems that can support this path.

This collection of core tenets serves as a rubric by which we can continually evaluate our work and improve. We acknowledge that no such rubric is perfect, and that our intentions are nothing compared to our impact. We are committed to ensuring we do as little harm as possible, and that our desire to do good never supersedes the true impact we are having on the communities we work with.

How is your work trauma-informed and culturally responsive?

Validation: We craft our activities, lessons, and questions in a way that encourages and emboldens our students to respond. We make it clear that their creative voices are upheld; everyone’s voice matters. 

Collaboration: We work in constant collaboration with administrators from our partner organizations. We invite our partner organizations to take the lead with classroom management, and incorporate our teaching into established and effective frameworks already in place. We welcome our partner organizations to be actively involved in our curriculum planning process, and ask them for help identifying our students’ needs. Instead of simply teaching what we believe our students should learn, we work with community leaders to craft lessons that address self-identified needs within those communities.

Professionalism: We know we aren’t perfect, and we know the boundaries of our expertise and experience. We center our teaching around music, where we are most experienced and competent, and work in collaboration with our thoughtfully-chosen partner organizations so that they, in turn, can offer their own expertise (in social work, community care, welfare services / food & housing, healthcare and counseling, recovery, job placement, tutoring / skills sharing).

Self-reflection: We use every student’s behavior and interaction as feedback about our activities and ourselves. We understand that “bad” behavior might be because our student didn’t get a meal before class, or because there is trauma that we don’t know about. This is another instance where we seek advice from our partner after thorough self-reflection about what we can do better before placing any blame on the student. 

How do you define “voluntourism” and “white savior complex”? 

We define voluntourism as a glamorized volunteer experience which take well-intentioned volunteers outside their expertise and skill sets, almost always to the detriment of the communities and people they intend to “help.” We see the negative impact of  the “white savior complex” (when white people or foreigners in general offer to “help” non-white people in a self-serving manner) and are committed to dismantling this practice.

We have strict policies in place for our teaching artists that help combat white savior complex. Beyond ensuring that we partner with organizations and leaders who are already providing important resources to their communities and only filling community-identified needs that align with our specific skill set, we  do not give our students material rewards or keepsakes (eg: candy, money, toys, musical instruments). We employ a strict social media policy, and do not interact with our underage students online after our residencies. We are committed to ensuring everything we do is in keeping with child protection policies as well as our own core values.

How does your organization spend the money you fundraise?

We believe there is no replacement for in-person music making, and we use the money we fundraise to travel to our partner organizations. As Trade Winds Ensemble, we are an organization of Teaching Artists who design collaborative workshops for students in order to uphold their unique musical voices, collaborate, and model to our fellow musicians an example of trauma-informed and culturally responsive teaching.

What kinds of organizations do you partner with and why?

We deliberately partner with organizations that are actively providing their students with services that save and improve lives: Examples of this include job training, access to regular meals and housing, and other social welfare services. What we do as members of Trade Winds Ensemble is to help serve our partners’ missions while sharing our musical experience and expertise as we teach. We use music to teach transferable social-emotional skills like confidence, identity, courage, and encourage collaboration, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving.