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CHAMPAIGN — Abby Crull remembers growing up in a house full of music.
From a young age, she played the oboe, practiced piano and sang in musical-theater productions. She was also a drum major in Champaign Central High School’s band and tap-danced in the bathtub until her parents took away her shoes, blaming the bad acoustics.
Crull, who tonight will be honored with 40 North’s Teacher ACE Award, said her upbringing as a performer informs the lifelong skills she has striven to foster in her students ever since she became a music teacher in the Champaign district 16 years ago.
Namely, the ability to improvise, accept feedback, take risks and create something new with other people. Not to mention the belief that you don’t have to be the best to matter, and everyone has greatness in them; it just takes the right support for that greatness to shine.
“It’s almost daily, and they’ll tell you this, that I tear up or I weep at the beauty of the music that they make and the magic that they create with each other,” Crull said.
“It’s really the best job in the school, and something I don’t take lightly,” she said. “I know it’s a responsibility and a gift.”
Growing up in Champaign, Crull originally wanted to become a professional musician or musical-theater actress, but it was ultimately her love of people that steered her into education.
A University of Illinois alumna, she first began teaching in Chicago in 2005. When she returned home two years later, she went on to teach music in four Unit 4 elementary schools — Garden Hills, Booker T. Washington, Westview and now South Side.
Her classroom approach, Crull said, is to emphasize connection over compliance. Instead of telling students what and how to play, she likes to say “yes” as much as possible to the 144 kids she sees every day and encourages them to share music they love.
That’s because education requires connection, a lesson Crull said she’s learned from the many music instructors and mentors that have touched her life. In her classroom — where units range from songwriting to hip-hop to jazz to drumming and dancing — empowering her students is always the main focus.
That came into play during the pandemic, she said, when classes were driven online. She and fellow district music teacher Brandon T. Washington facilitated outside sing-alongs and weekly Friday night family jams over Zoom.
Crull said she’s also brought her students to perform at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and local nursing homes.
Crull said the ACE teacher award from 40 North is ultimately the biggest honor she’s ever received because it comes from her backyard, from the community that raised her — and yet she said it’s also a humbling and embarrassing gift, because she’d prefer the spotlight remain on her students.
But Crull said she planned on accepting it today on behalf of every teacher making a difference in the lives of kids in Champaign-Urbana.
“I learn a lot every day from my students,” Crull said. “They’re just the best of what’s to come, and I’m trying to help them create stories and worlds inside of this classroom that they can carry on to make the world better when they get out.”
