The Educational Care Spiral

Utilizing the ECS

In a Care-filled music classroom, all Zones of Care could be utilized, with each successive journey around the spiral increasing the scope and breadth of the interactions. The spiral's center point leads straight into Zone 1: Equitable and Relational Caring With, because that is the foundation upon which all else is built. Rather than beginning on the outside and working inward, the ECS uses dialogue, trust and caring with relations as its foundation. Many music educators teach students for multiple years. By establishing Zone 1 interactions with those long-term students, the teacher and returning students work together to create a Care-filled environment that can embrace the new students who enter the program or classroom. Zone 1 is driven by intrinsic motivation, not grades or performance accolades. The focus is on the process and the relationships, with the confidence that the product will naturally be of high quality if the process is of high quality.

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The teacher and students in Zone 1 help inspire the other zones. Zone 2: Generalized Caring About, is the broadest zone and easiest to achieve, but cannot be overlooked. Working to help students generally care about music, their classmates, and the world around them is important. Focus on relevance can help bring about Zone 2 experiences. The next zone is Zone 3: Specialized Caring About. This zone involves more specific and personalized relevance, and can be positively influenced by Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and heavy contextualization of the music. I have found that along with relevance, personal meaningfulness for students can arise in Zone 3 due to the personalized connection students make with the music they are studying.

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Zone 4: Caring About and Caring For Intermingling is characterized by a significant increase in meaningfulness and relational care. My interactions with students in this zone include some temporary caring for interactions. The students begin to realize that I care for them or they begin to care for others, but it is temporary or not reciprocated. However, the meaningfulness and relevance of the music study is strong, so the students begin to work more based off of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic factors. I also try to foster student voice within this zone, encouraging students to do more music interpretation on their own.

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Zone 5: Stable Caring For encompasses strong meaningfulness and fully relational care. Within this zone, intrinsic motivation continues to grow, so I have found that strong contextualization of the music and student empowerment can work together to encourage the students to adopt a more activist-minded and critical examination of the world around them through their music. It is within this zone that I have witnessed students begin to reach out and actively strive to communicate with others through their music, focusing on the meaning of the product, not just the execution of the skills.

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After Zone 5, the journey on the ECS moves forward into Zone 1, and then a new journey around the spiral can begin. In this new journey, the "new" students that were brought into Zone 2 previously are now the leaders that will help the teacher create the Caring environment that hopefully includes new students. The spiral grows, as does its influence. I feel that using the ECS as a model for applying and studying Care in the music classroom can potentially help focus teacher/student interactions and provide a dedicated space for application of diverse and critically-minded pedagogical practices in a manner that is responsible, caring, and non-exploitive.

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For further information on my application of the ECS, see my dissertation (under review): Coonfield, C. (2026). Meaningfulness and relevance of a student-planned social justice choral event: How American high school students used choir to tell their own stories. Boston University.