The past two decades have seen a growing de-professionalization of teaching. Combating this educational climate requires music teacher education programs to prioritize both critical pedagogical practices and policy knowhow in order to reestablish a focus on relational engagements and the navigation of the complex tensions lived daily in schools. In this article, we utilize the frameworks of border crossing and policy ethnography to explore the experiences of one music educator acting as a policy practitioner. We focus on the ways she utilized a project in her general music classes as a space for pedagogical risk-taking and policy practice, challenging taken-for-granted norms both within her own music classroom as well as within the larger school setting. We use her experiences to formulate an argument that considers how critical pedagogical practice and policy knowhow might be seen as interdependent partners in music teacher education, both equally important when advancing a forward-looking agenda of professionalization in music education.