Elementary music teacher Kim Sheppard’s experiences in music have not only helped her support her students in growing their love for music for years on end, but they also helped her rekindle her love for music as she learns new things and helps others learn something new.

What follows is Kim’s story, in her own words:

There’s so many day-to-day moments where you have shining moments with children, but if you’re talking about bigger elements, I once took 90 students to sing at a hockey game in the United States. Sang at the hockey game; that was really exciting. Putting together some plays and musicals of 90 or 100 kids at one time, that was a challenge, but an exciting one to figure out all the logistics and to make sure everyone felt seen and as an equal part of the production. I think those are some of the proud moments. 

I think the way I go about teaching music is giving kids materials that they’ll want to sing and enjoy singing. And because, when I was a kid I was just around music a lot. It wasn’t piano lessons that sparked my love of music but it was being in the car with my family and singing these silly songs for hours on end and having these moments; they’re all based around my family, and having these times where my parents just enjoyed singing with me and singing lullabies and strumming some chords on the guitar while we sang together. These catchy songs became just a part of what I love to do. Later, I got more involved in structured things like performing plays and lessons and things like that, and that refined and honed [my music skills] but the original spark of loving music was just having enjoyable musical moments at a young age.