Empathy: Is it Teachable?

July 10th, 2014 Empathy: the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s feelings. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Everyday we wake up to news of shootings in schools, children and teens bullied by their peers, gang violence, violent attacks against women, homosexuals, immigrant-bashing, brutalities inflicted on humans […]

Whatever Happened to Music Education?

December 1, 2011 In writing a recent blog, inspired by LA Philharmonic’s Music Director Gustavo Dudamel’s orchestral version of a popular Puerto Rican band’s hit song, I began to muse on the subject of music education: in Venezuela and the U.S. There are a million kids enrolled in Venezuela’s music system, called El Sistema. Some […]