The most valuable thing for me about CAN is being able to talk and learn from others outside of my district and being able to take what I’m learning back to the teachers in my district. CAN has given me a voice. I know I’m not alone with the issues I face.

While I feel so alone and working as an individual in my own school, this community has connected me to other dance educators to improve my practice. The action research has impacted my students and my own practice by creating an environment where I can work through challenges, ideas, concepts, and problems, and how to improve my work with students in real time.

Participating in CAN is inspiring me to think outside the box and try new things in my planning and teaching practice. I feel supported in my opinion of the importance of arts education and that it plays a key role in human development, and this is empowering me to experiment and try new things with my students and receive feedback from other art educators.

My students have gotten to enjoy the shift in my approach. Before CAN, I was very focused on my standards and how best to implement assessments. Since joining CAN, I have found my number one goal for my students is joy in music. I teach the standards through a lens of relationship, connection, and expectation that I created through my work in CAN.

As a small school, CAN has provided our arts teachers with the opportunity to connect with one another and with other arts teachers for professional development that is immediately applicable to their daily work. We can see the impact of the CAN sessions in every classroom visit and observation, because teachers are implementing practice-based, high-fidelity inquiry with their peers.