Her Story
Linda White holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Evansville (1969) and a master’s in secondary education from Indiana University (1973). She began her career in Columbus, Indiana, where she taught general music and choral music in grades K–8 for the Bartholomew Consolidated Schools. When she stepped away from public school teaching to raise her family, she and a friend started “Paradiddles,” a preschool music consulting business that gave workshops for Head Start and private preschools and spoke at local, state and national conferences. She also helped found Little Seeds Preschool, which is still running more than twenty years later.
Since 1989 she has taught general music in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, one of the largest school systems in the country, and she now teaches at Haycock Elementary, where she sees about 500 of the school’s 650 students. Her teaching certificate lets her teach music, she says, but her philosophy is “that I teach students much more than music”: in her classes children may learn math, science, social studies, geography, ecology, sign language, choreography and social skills, along with computer skills, leadership and teamwork.
Her classroom is “a beehive” of focused activity. There are no student chairs and children sit on the floor, a bookcase holds instruments from around the world, maps mark the countries she has visited, and fourteen giraffes keep watch. Students work in learning centers, compose their own pieces and take turns acting as teachers and coaches.
Beyond the Classroom
White writes musicals with her classroom colleagues, including a sixth grade teacher from a neighboring school, to bring science and social studies to life. She composes the music, and the scripts build in state and national learning standards. Titles include “Worms, We Dig You,” “Orthopterans All Over the Place,” “Chez Francois,” “George Mason’s Legacy,” “Inventor’s Theatre,” “The Adventures of Lewis and Clark (with a little help from their animal friends)” and “Shades of Blue and Gray: Musical Letters From The Civil War.” For the Lewis and Clark musical she and the school librarian took a course on the expedition at the University of Virginia. Teachers have told her that students did better on their Standards of Learning tests when the material had been covered in a musical.
She has been a Fulbright Memorial Fund scholar to Japan (2003), a Fulbright-Hays seminar fellow in New Zealand (2002), a Kennedy Center ArtsEdge fellow (1997–98), an Audubon fellow (2000) and an Opera Guild Outstanding Educator (2003), and in 2005 she received the Excellence in Teaching Across Cultures Award and taught in Konstantinovka, Ukraine. Since then her school has exchanged letters, art and books with a school there. She has served on the Fulbright Memorial Fund reading committee.
At home in Fairfax County, she co-teaches “Continuing the Journey,” a year-long class that supports experienced music teachers who are new to the county, one of two induction programs for the county’s 240-plus elementary music teachers. She has also helped start an ecology program and an annual Veterans Day program in which second graders honor veterans, with a “Hallway of Veterans” hung with photographs and biographies from school families.
Philosophy Into Practice
White believes a teacher must also be a learner, that learning can happen anywhere and at any time, and that collaboration is essential. She wants students to take risks, explore and create, and to know “there is a whole world around them” to which they will contribute.
She builds learning around trust and respect: at the start of each year her classes work on a place where “questions are encouraged, experimentation is promoted, discussion is expected, and tolerance is mandatory.” She assesses students with pretests, aural and written checks and differentiated games and buddies, so that children at every level can build on what they know.
“I teach students much more than music.”— Linda White
“I firmly believe that to be a teacher one must also be a learner and that learning can take place anywhere and anytime.”— Linda White
In Her Own Words
“My personal accomplishments are really collaborative ones.”— Linda White
“To enter my classroom is to enter a beehive.”— Linda White
“Students are active learners who also serve as teachers, coaches, time keepers, gate keepers and experts.”— Linda White
“Good assessment is the key to good instruction.”— Linda White
“Teaching demands that you have the respect of your students and that they in turn respect you.”— Linda White
“My definition of community is broader than the geographic area where I live.”— Linda White
What Others Said
“Linda White is the epitome of what an excellent educator is.”— Debra Kay Robinson Lindsay, nominator, colleague and friend
“It was Linda’s enthusiasm and belief in her students that gave us the freedom and confidence to exceed our own expectations.”— Brad Garton, Professor of Music, Columbia University, former student
“She is a risk taker, purposely leaving her comfort zone to acquire new knowledge and take on new educational challenges.”— Virginia B. Mahlke, retired principal, Wolftrap Elementary School
“Linda White is truly an extraordinary teacher, a highly creative musician and a person of integrity and commitment to excellence.”— Virginia B. Mahlke, retired principal, Wolftrap Elementary School
“She is an exemplary teacher who can seamlessly take the resources she has gathered from across the world and turn them into meaningful, substantive learning for her students.”— Roger D. Tomhave, Ph.D., Fine Arts Coordinator, Fairfax County Public Schools