I'll start by sharing my own personal mission statement for any students I teach: "When students move on from music with me, they will be able to express themselves safely, joyfully, and intelligently by being musically literate, appreciating and creating music, and by discovering their role as a daily and lifelong learner with a responsibility to share what they know with others."

Hopefully this perfectly matches your mission. By being musically literate, students are achieving excellence. By appreciating and creating, they are critically thinking. By expressing themselves through the art of music, they are demonstrating creativity. And by encouraging them to share what they know, they are treating others with respect. Music fits into our world and our lives in many ways, and I seek to help students find the ways music fits into theirs.