The focus will be on developing music teaching and learning strategies for welcoming young children across the developmental periods of early childhood, middle childhood, and adolesence into the diverse human practice of musicking. This course offers an alternative to traditional methodologies by encouraging students to develop their own orientation based on a critical examination of bell hooks’s philosophy of education as the practice of freedom as well as antiracist and anti-oppressive approaches to music education. Students will build teaching expertise through peer teaching and reflective examination of current practices. Lectures and assignments will include exploring diverse repertoire for students in the elementary grades and an examination of the current research in the field of elementary music education. As part of this course, students are expected to submit a research paper, present a seminar discussion on a chosen topic relating to music in childhood as well as submit and present an individual “teaching project.” The welcoming project will be the preparation of a collection of repertoire and teaching materials.