Eight Endeavors of Culture

Dr. Alice A. Tsui 徐晓兰 and Eric Williamson

Music educators and frequent collaborators Dr. Alice A. Tsui 徐晓 and Eric Williamson share their framework for culturally responsive and sustaining education, inspiring reflection that will positively impact teachers’ practices and learning environments.

Culture is who we are — musically, communally, and holistically. Inspired by the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings, Geneva Gay, Constance McKoy, and Gholdy Muhammad, we created eight endeavors of culture for all educators to consider when centering the people in our spaces. We encourage educators to deeply reflect on our eight endeavors, including navigating personal responses to the endeavors themselves, asking yourselves the reflection questions, and critically returning to the framework throughout your pedagogy over time. 

Culture originates from people and centers our experiences and stories. 


Our definition of CULTURE focuses on eight endeavors:

Center culture, identity, and stories of people

Uplift student voices 

Liberate through experiences that center joy 

Teach aurally

Understand the community 

Respond to and expand the canon 

Eradicate the status quo

Center culture, identity, and stories of people 

  • Who do we center in our classroom?

  • How can we center people through their identities and stories?

  • How can we empower people of the global majority?

Uplift student voices 

  • How can students contribute their voices?

  • How can we uplift student voices in and out of the classroom?

  • How can each student’s ideas be centered in learning?

Liberate through experiences that center joy

  • How can students be their authentic selves? 

  • How can students create and sustain joy in their learning? 

  • What can learning look like, sound like, and feel like through joyful experiences?

Teach aurally

  • How can we center storytelling and communication modes of the global majority?

  • How can we artistically integrate music and movement?

  • How can we activate radical listening for communal change?

Understand the community

  • Who is in your classroom? Who is in your community?

  • How is your community flourishing?

  • How can your community thrive? What does your community need to thrive?

Respond to and expand the canon

  • How can we respond to the canon?

  • How can we expand curriculums to include our students? 

  • How can our revised canon reflect our community? 

Eradicate the status quo 

  • What facets of the status quo do we abide by?

  • How can we create new norms that center our students’ livelihoods?

  • How can we reimagine schools to center culture?

CULTURE (Center, Uplift, Liberate, Teach, Understand, Respond, Eradicate) interwoven together helps to continually cultivate community in the classroom.

DR. ALICE A. TSUI 徐晓兰 (pronounced TSOY | she/her) is the Founding Music Teacher and Arts Coordinator at PS 532 New Bridges Elementary in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her B.M. in Piano Performance and Master of Arts in Music Education from New York University, and her Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education from Boston University. Dr. Tsui facilitates professional development on culturally responsive and sustaining music education, antiracist music education, student voice and empowerment with affirmations, and joy in the music classroom, and has actively presented with Carnegie Hall Music Educators Workshop. Dr. Tsui is the author of “We Are Golden 我们是金的”, a bilingual Mandarin Chinese and English musical children’s book that speaks to antiracism, affirmation, and self-reflection born out of the Stop Asian Hate movement. Dr. Tsui is a Professor at Longy School of Music of Bard College, where she has established the inaugural Social and Emotional Learning in the Trauma-Informed Music Classroom course. Dr. Tsui has taught at New York University, City University of New York Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. Dr. Tsui is a Grammy Finalist Music Educator and has been featured on NBC, NowThis News, PBS, TODAY, and USAToday for her activism. As a product of the NYC public school system, Dr. Tsui is passionate about empowering the individual and collective voices of youth through music.

Connect with Dr. Alice A. Tsui at www.alicetsui.com and Instagram/TikTok @musicwithmissalice.

ERIC WILLIAMSON (he/him) is the Artistic Director of Lavender Light: The Black and People of All Colors Lesbian & Gay Gospel Choir, now celebrating its 40th anniversary. Lavender Light passionately performs Black gospel music while centering Black, Brown, and LGBTQIA+ voices. Mr. Williamson holds a B.A. in Music from Penn State and an M.A. in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. A magnetic and versatile conductor, he has led choirs across the East Coast and is a frequent clinician with Carnegie Hall’s Music Educator Workshop, centering Black composers. He has conducted with the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus and was Music Director for NYU Steinhardt’s 2025 scholar-in-residence, Eve. As a National Facilitator for the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools program, Mr. Williamson advocates for equity and culturally responsive education. He has led workshops on anti-racism and LGBTQ+ inclusion for organizations across the country and is an adjunct professor at NYU Steinhardt, where he founded and directs the Black Music Ensemble. Currently, Mr. Williamson teaches PreK–5 general music at P.S. 32 in Brooklyn,NY.

For more information, please visit www.ericwilliamson.org.