‘It’s like you’re an activist’: Sustainable teaching practices in a music outreach project in London

This colloquium contributes to current conversations on the potential for participatory music-making to promote sustainable human coexistence. We attend to the experiences and collaborative learning practices of teachers working in a community music school and outreach initiative known as the King’s Music Academy, based in Southwark, London. In order to interrogate how teachers make sense of their experience at the Academy, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings suggest that participation in the Academy facilitates processes of self-reflection, personal growth and cultural exchange among teachers. Teachers become part of an organic network where innovative pedagogical practices are discussed and adopted. We conclude that the development of certain ‘rhizomatic’ attitudes and structures in the context of the classroom can contribute to imagining alternative ways of thinking about the self, music-making and society at large.