ABSTRACT
Musically talented humans come in a range of bodies and abilities. Engaging with disability studies authors and music pedagogues, I show that the music classroom is a space of multiple explicit and implicit challenges, whose norms are often arbitrary and exclusionary. To make space for more different kinds of learners, I offer a concise introduction to Universal Design for Learning, highlighting several “best practices” for the music classroom. In sum, the chapter encourages teachers to “design for access” rather than to rely solely on after-the-fact accommodations. By paying careful attention to the different kinds of challenges students face in our classrooms, we can build our classroom environments to welcome students with many kinds of differences.
