The Preeminent Personal Playlist Project

Music wafts through the classroom as three song clips play. One is a throwback to the past, a nostalgic song. One is a song that reflects your identity- something about yourself or a passion you have. The final song is a song that lifts you up, pumps you up and helps you get going or shifts your mood. That is the power pack of the P3. Three songs that tell your story and bring a year of self reflection and development into view. The P3 was my 7th Building Outside the Blocks (BOB) project in my ⅘ class this year, and it punctuated the learning, our built community, and the growth of so much.

This is my 5th year of facilitating the Personal Playlist Project in public school, and the 8th year since I created it. It began as the Personal Soundtrack, but it was always a powerful way to get to know learners and for them to get to know themselves. I knew it was a wonderful addition to my Building Outside the Blocks projects (BOBs), but it was the opportunity to do a TEDx Talk on the subject that really allowed me to discover all aspects of why this is a culturally responsive, meaningful, and important project to add to your classroom. I have now had the chance to implement this incredible project from Grade 4 up, and I highly encourage all teachers to consider it. I’m glad I waited until the end of the year for this one. What a sendoff for the spectrum of students in my class and a way to punctuate the year!

If you have seen my TEDx Talk, Play It Forward, or even been to one of my presentations on why BOB projects help students build skill, autonomy community and connection to themselves, you know that the P3 is one of my favourites because music is such a powerful medium for people to express themselves and connect to their whole lives. As I have said many times, “Music is a way in and a way out.”

Each year and group of students brings unique needs, challenges, and triumphs, and this year there were many notable moments. For my students who love music, it is a chance to really come alive and immerse in a school project. The details with which they explained their choices was remarkable, and for some it is the first time they fully show up for their learning. For my newcomers and MultiLingual Learners (MLL), it’s a beautiful way to let the music speak for them and present in their first language with English translations. They bring their whole sleeves to the assignment. For others, it's a way to learn the subtle ways that music connects them to their heritage, tells their story as soccer or basketball players, hockeys players, video game fanatics or Tik Tok trend followers. There is music in many languages across genres playing for the selected duration to illustrate the choice and explain the reasoning. We hear references to nonnas, babas, yia yas, ummas, papas and other variations of mom, dad, grandma and grandpa in the plethora of first languages in my classroom as they share. One student, who has been an elective mute, shared her entire P3 in front of the class with clarity and confidence, and I couldn’t fight back the tears. This project can do so much for individual students, and it can bring your class together in community.

Those moments when the whole class sings a song together are always remarkable. Music bridges language and cultural divides and even new English speakers seem to know the lyrics from the chorus of Bruno Mars”s You Can Count on Me, Wavin’ Flag by Knaan, or the now popular Cupid by Fifty Fifty. As Stevie Wonder sings in Sir Duke, and was the theme song for my P3 podcast for educators, “Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand.”

Here is some unedited feedback from my students:

I like sharing songs that I like from different languages. I also like sharing why I like them and the reasons why my song was nostalgic.This also allows ours class to learn about our music play style and what kind f music genre we like.

I enjoyed rickrolling the class because It was so funny seeing their faces! 🤣

i liked listening to other peoples favourite songs that represent them.

I liked to listening to other peoples songs. And some of the songs made me emotional.

The song part because I got to know different songs.😇

The unique thing about this project was that there were many different music genres that people like.

I liked pick music that I like and present to the class. 🥰

It was entertaining, Every day there was a P3. I was sooo excited about it.

I liked listening to P3's because I could learn why people chose their song, and also I would learn what music they like.

To hear other peoples languages and songs that mean something to them

Learning about people and learning who there are through a song.

I am sharing this year’s P3 outline and some previous posts about the power of the P3:

The P3 Plays Out In Face to face and Virtual Classrooms

Music to My Ears and More

The P3 Ends But the Memories Live On

The P3 was also the name of my first podcast where I asked educators about their playlists using the same categories. I used to blog about each one. You can also listen to one of the hundreds of educators who have shared their song stories now archived on YouTube.