Teacher of the Year Candidates: Patricia Kelly from Ramsey International Fine Arts

The “Teacher of the Year” award is given out by the state teachers union every year to reward one dedicated educator for their contributions to the state's education. This year, seven (out of 108) candidates for Education Minnesota’s award were from Minneapolis Public Schools, four of whom teach in Southwest Minneapolis. For the next few weeks we'll be recognizing these Southwest teachers for their service, as well as asking their thoughts on the pressing educational issues of the day.

At Ramsey International Fine Arts Center, a K-8 fine arts magnet school in Tangletown, longtime string instrument teacher Patricia Kelly said she wishes there was more money available to help students to take private lessons.  

“I teach many kids with a lot of talent, but if you want to get into college as a player, you have to have private lessons,” she explained.  

Kelly said the availability of these lessons is partly dependent on chance—how long a neighborhood music teacher can continue to offer free or deeply discounted lessons to her students, or how long a grant funding an area music school’s scholarship program will last.

“Schools like Ramsey teach groups [because of the high cost of individual lessons], but universities want soloists,” she said.  “Private lessons teach some crucial skills that you just can’t learn in even a small group.”

Because of this, Kelly said, auditions required for admission to college music programs “are set up to be racist, classist, and elitist.”

She said she also wants to see more integration of the arts into teaching core subjects like reading and math. Kelly said she and other music teachers are still exploring how this might be done, but it could involve participation in a study she is conducting as part of research on the subject for her doctorate at the University of Minnesota.