Whether we intend it or not, our teaching communicates and promotes specific values: as Rogers states, “Even the most neutral courses will have hidden biases” (2004, 15–16). These values relate to content (“X music is worthy of serious study”; “Students must learn contemporary techniques”), learning and personal development (“Active learning is the best way to truly engage with education,” “Students must learn to handle failure productively”), worldview (“All cultures have music of value,” “All people deserve autonomy and agency”), and more. Paying close attention to our values allows us to improve our courses (Rogers 2004), makes our teaching and other activities more personally fulfilling (Snodgrass 2022), and helps ensure we are not betraying our stated values through our actions (Ewell 2020). From a practical perspective, this is also useful in writing a Teaching Philosophy, often required for job applications and evaluation/promotion.

At the 2025 meeting of the Music Theory Pedagogy Interest Group, we will explore articulating teaching values and using them to evaluate our teaching, alternating lightning talks and time for small-group discussion facilitated by our panelists in a collaborative setting. Four lightning talks will explore different approaches to teaching values, setting up a discussion of attendees’ values and how they put these values into practice. Four more lightning talks will share ways that different scholars have used their values to evaluate their teaching or changed their teaching to better fit their values. A final discussion period will give time for consideration of alignment between values and teaching. The session will end with a short (15 minute) business meeting, including a call for nominations for the next chair of the interest group.

• Philip Duker (University of Delaware) and Jennifer England (Montana State University), “The Stepping-Up Principle”
• Peter Schubert (McGill University), “Style is the Answer to Everything”
• Alexandrea Jonker (SUNY Potsdam), “Valuing Care in Music Theory Pedagogy”
• David Easley (Oklahoma City University), “A Punk Pedagogy for Music Theory”
• Jocelyn Ho and James Humberstone (The University of Sydney), “The Labour of Agency: Co-Design and the Ethics of Shared Power in the Music Classroom”
• Ellen Shaw (Michigan State University), “Surveying the Experiences of Black Students within the Music Theory Sequence”
• Leah Frederick (University of Colorado Boulder), “Should We Grade Participation, Preparation, and Attendance? If So, How?”
• Michael Chikinda (University of Utah), “Inakomysliye: Values-Aligned Teaching in an Increasing Environment of Political Assertion"