Teacher Spotlight: Jade Brathwaite

Meet teacher Jade Brathwaite! Jade joined ETM as a music teacher intern during the 2024-2025 school year as a part of our Music Teacher Workforce Development Program. With ETM alumni Leah Thakur as her mentor at P.S. 483 in the Bronx, Jade now leads her own classrooms as a music teacher at P.S. 178 in Brooklyn. Jade speaks with us about her journey as a music educator, the importance of representation in the classroom, and how she brings her musicianship to connecting with and teaching K-5 students.

Share with us your story: where are you from, your educational background, your experiences with music, and how you came to ETM.

I am from Brooklyn, born and raised. I started off singing in church and still attend the same church that I started singing in. I am a worship leader now and head of their music department. I attended LaGuardia High School here in New York where I had my first formal training in music and had the space to perform. After that, I went to NYU for vocal performance and actually wanted to go to NYU for music education. It was a five year program and at the end of it I would have graduated with a Bachelor’s in classical training, in teaching, and would have received a certificate to teach K-12. Unfortunately, this was all during the pandemic and the program had gone on a moratorium. So after graduating from NYU I was looking for jobs and came across ETM’s music teacher internship on LinkedIn. It seemed so perfect. I knew that I wanted to do music education and although the original program at NYU was terminated, I saw this as a new opportunity. I applied and, thankfully, was accepted!

Tell us about your experience as an intern with ETM.

I started as an intern in September 2024 and while I dipped my toes in private instruction through my church, this was my first experience teaching in the classroom. That’s why the internship program was so attractive, because to step into a full-time teaching position would have been very drastic for me. I saw the internship as a great stepping stone into my own classroom, and all of the experiences that ETM offered were very attractive and helpful. They provided so many lesson plans and repertoire beforehand, and going through ETM Academy before the school year started was really eye-opening. Learning the importance of backwards planning for lesson plans, implementing assessment into everything we do with students – these workshops gave me a little bit of what to expect from observing my mentor.

My internship was at P.S. 483 in the Bronx, and being from Brooklyn, it was quite the commute! But I was assured that the internship would be worth it for my own development, and it certainly disciplined me in terms of time management and punctuality. I was paired with ETM Alumni Leah Thakur as my mentor, who served as such a great model for me. Her students were already so great, and I was able to see her routines and habits, her calls to attention, seeing what she had taken from ETM’s resources and applied to her own teaching, her own strategies for knowing her students – all of this was very educational. 

More so, I was paired with a Black woman and really appreciated having that kind of representation and ability to apply our own experiences in the classroom. 

Pretty soon, it was time for me to start teaching myself, and I did so a little bit earlier than planned. In November, I had the opportunity to go to P.S. 178 in Brooklyn – where I currently teach at – and try out some of the things I was learning with my mentor. Initially, it was really interesting to see the differences between the students at P.S. 178 and P.S. 483. At 178, I had to focus more on classroom management as well as invest more into getting to know the students to develop a connection with them, because the more I develop those connections,the more I am about to learn about and apply their interests and experiences into my teaching.

Throughout the whole process, I felt very supported by my instructional supervisors at ETM, Jameon and Stejha. They are both very helpful in identifying specific goals to address and improve upon in my teaching. 

Are you a musician? If so, how do you bring these experiences into the classroom and your work with students?

Something I value about myself as a vocalist is the ability to hear, so when I’m teaching I really exaggerate scales in my classroom, especially in my warm-ups. Typically we start with solfege, and at this point I find myself wanting to exaggerate pitch. I want them to hear me and sing things back to me. I typically try to implement that in our warm-ups and to develop their ear, so that when it comes to learning songs, it becomes easier for us.

What skills or experiences have you gained at ETM that you find most useful and helpful in your career as a music educator, especially moving from intern to teacher?

In addition to all of the experience I gained from working with my mentor, one thing I wouldn’t know without ETM is what to start with for each grade group. I love ETM’s benchmarks document – it’s a great template to take from and start with. Pertaining to culture in the classroom and routines, I separate my lesson plans between K-2 and 3-5. I like to create more challenging exercises for the older grades. For the K-2 groups, I’m learning that they appreciate more visuals and more physical things – they have a lot of energy – so I’m working to physicalize music as much as possible with them.

What do you love most about teaching music?

I love seeing the students have fun, and as of right now, it’s seeing myself in them and seeing them be inspired. Even yesterday, I feel like I had a great experience with a student in my 1st grade class. From the day I met him, I realized that this is one of those students that does not sit still and needs a little extra attention, so I needed to find ways to really connect with him to stay engaged. Yesterday, I had him next to me in class while I played them a piece, and while I was sitting with him, I heard him sing back the melody after one listen. I realized, wow, he is brilliant! All of that to say that my favorite thing about teaching so far is seeing the students be inspired.

Is there a particular stand-out moment during your time teaching, a concert, or a student’s story – their change or development through music class – that has surprised you in a moving way?

A moment where I’ve become emotional with my students was when I first did solo auditions for the song “Winter Things” that we were doing with the older grades. A lot of younger Black girls were auditioning and I couldn’t help but see myself in them. First we did warm-ups with them, then we all sang it together. And just watching that, I was seeing how they were learning through that solo audition experience. Also, I’m noticing how important representation is for me, and how important it is that their teacher is a person that looks like them. So I work to reflect that in my classroom. Yesterday we were learning the song Little Liza Jane, and I used that opportunity to introduce students to Nina SImone. Seeing them and seeing myself in them again accentuated the importance of representation.

What are you thinking about for your next steps as a music educator?

As a musician I really want to perform professionally and am actively looking for experiences this summer. One thing I would also love to do, the main goal, is to receive my certification, which I know is ETM’s goal, too. This is something that I would definitely like to seek out, so that whether or not I continue with ETM, I have that freedom to teach in the NYC DOE.