Singing in the Key of Education
While on an educational trip to Reggio Emilia, Italy, Mia Ray ’26 paused under a stone archway, took a deep breath, and began singing in Italian.
Ray’s light, pure tone, and smooth legato phrases shocked her professors and classmates, who had no idea that the early childhood education major is also a classically trained singer. Even a local passing by raised his voice to join hers. When they finished, locals and visitors exploded in a chorus of applause and cheers of “brava!”
Although initially nervous about her Italian pronunciation, Ray said the experience of singing an Italian art song in Italy “just felt very warm in my heart and body.” She also called it a full circle moment after honing her voice over years of practice.
Growing up in Mount Desert Island, Maine, Ray had a musical family, but her voice started to soar in high school. That was when a choir teacher took Ray under her wing and introduced her to Bel Canto, a style of singing focused on tall, open vowels, beautiful melodies, and vocal agility that later influenced opera.
“I spent all of my time with [my choir teacher] figuring out how to sing these Italian arias or art songs,” Ray said. “As she described them to me, they were that day’s pop music.”
In addition to singing, Ray is passionate about dance. In her first two years at Endicott, she danced with the Endicott Dance Group (EDGE) and the Repertory Dance Ensemble, even choreographing a routine her sophomore year.
As a future educator, Ray hopes to combine her creativity with a passion for teaching she’s had since fourth grade. “I found myself being drawn to care for [my younger sister and other relatives] and play with them,” she says. “That quickly became my role in my family—I was always caring for the kids. If you couldn’t find a little one, they were likely with me.”
Ray’s trip to Italy with Assistant Professor of Education Joy Dangora Erickson focused on learning about the Reggio Emilia educational approach from the Italian city they visited. “The Reggio Emilia philosophy is based on the needs of the child, and it is very child-centered,” she said. “It focuses on the child as a whole, honing in on their curiosity to see where the learning will go.”
Embodied, interactive read-alouds are one of these techniques. “It takes your standard read-aloud, where students are passively engaging in listening to the story, and broadens it so that there are stops where comprehension can be built and meaning can be made,” Ray explained.
For instance, she might read a book to a group of students twice, stopping the first time to highlight vocabulary and ask comprehension questions. “Then you can go back through it again and stop and ask what movement goes with this?” Ray said. “Why does it go with this? How can we represent what they’re trying to say in this book with our bodies?”
Ray then helps piece together movements from different students. “This embodied read-aloud that brings in movement and dance and becomes a collaboratively choreographed piece shows how students can speak and show their understanding,” she said.
Ray and Erickson coauthored a paper on this technique titled “Navigating Early Childhood Education Mandates and Planning for High-Quality Read-Alouds with Malaguzzi and Dewey.” They presented the paper at the annual convening of the North Eastern Philosophy of Education Society at Boston College in October 2024. It will be published as a chapter in an edited volume.
Ray received real-world experience through internships at the preschool in her hometown and a North Beverly School, where she studied how literature was taught in a first-grade classroom. Still, she admits that the transition to college wasn’t easy, as she sometimes struggled with confidence and worried about finding her place. However, she’s flourished with Endicott’s supportive community.
“Last spring into this fall cemented that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing and where I should be doing it because I had a lot of professors and peers who supported me, and we supported one another,” Ray said.
She cited Julie Kenny Calzini, Myrt Harper Rose Dean of the School of Education, and Erickson as key influences on her development and confidence.
“Professor Erickson has definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone multiple times in the past couple of months, first with continuing to sing in the archways, rather than just doing that one song, and then helping her write the paper,” Ray said. Erickson also urged her to sing at the fall 2024 Convocation and introduced Ray before her song.
After graduation, Ray plans to earn a master’s—potentially in a new program currently being developed around the Reggio Emilia approach—and obtain an additional license in special education.
“My goal has always been to create a very diverse learning environment where students of all abilities and all backgrounds can feel welcome within my classroom,” she said.