Meghan Hickey is a general music and choir teacher at Old Orchard Junior High School in Skokie, IL, a suburb just outside of Chicago. She was inspired to become a music teacher when she was in high school because she taught beginner levels of Irish dance as her after school job, so she decided to combine her two passions of teaching and music. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and just completed her Masters of Science in Child Development at Erikson Institute in Chicago. Meghan is a contributing author of “Portraits of Music Education and Social Emotional Learning: Teaching Music with Heart” by Scott Edgar and has several years of experience leading the fine arts department at Old Orchard. She is excited to be on the CAN team to learn more about SEL and DE&I in music education, connect with other music educators across the country, and improve her leadership skills.
MEMBER QUOTE
Successful performances happen when students enjoy the music. Choose repertoire that excites you. If you are enthusiastic about the music, that emotion can be transferred to your students if you have built relationships with them. Challenge students to sing music of varying tempos and genres. I include a decent representation of pop, R&B, and musical theater in our concert. The pop and musical theater songs I choose are unfamiliar, so my singers are still being exposed to new music.
