This is the opening statement of “The Value and Quality of
Arts Education: A Statement of Principles,” a document from the nation’s ten
most important educational organizations, including the American Association of
School Administrators, the National Education Association, the National Parent
Teacher Association, and the National School Boards Association.
The nation’s top business executives agree
that arts education programs can help repair weaknesses in American education
and better prepare workers for the 21st century. —
“The Changing Workplace is Changing Our View of Education.” –
Business Week
Casals says, music fills him with the wonder of
life and the ‘incredible marvel’ of being a human. Ives says it expands his
mind and challenges him to be a true individual. Bernstein says it is enriching
and ennobling. To me, that sounds like a good cause for making music and the
arts an integral part of every child’s education. Studying music and the arts
elevates children’s education, expands students’ horizons, and teaches them to
appreciate the wonder of life.— Former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W.
Riley.
In study after study, we are told that being involved in
music in one form or another increases analytical ability, creative potential,
motor skills, and self-esteem in virtually all involved. There is even
more evidence that points to music as a tool for social interaction, as
students receiving music instruction seem to work better in groups and get
along more with both peers and superiors alike. At the high school level,
students are scoring an average of 35 points higher on the verbal section of
their SAT’s if music education is a part of their overall education.
– The International Musician
Based on a growing body of convincing research, the following facts about the benefits of music education help
parents make the right choices for their children regarding participation in
band. The benefits conveyed by music education can be grouped in four categories:
* Success in society
* Success in school
* Success in developing intelligence
* Success in life
Benefit One: Success in Society
Perhaps the basic reason that every child must have an
education in music is that music is a part of the fabric of our society. The
intrinsic value of music for each individual is widely recognized in the many
cultures that make up American life — every human culture uses music to carry
forward its ideas and ideals. The importance of music to our economy is without
doubt. And the value of music in shaping individual abilities and character are
attested in a number of places: Here are the facts…
Music is a magical gift we must nourish and cultivate in our children, especially now as scientific evidence proves that an
education in the arts makes better math and science students, enhances spatial
intelligence in newborns, and let's not forget that the arts are a compelling
solution to teen violence, certainly not the cause of it. — Michael Greene, Recording
Academy
President and CEO at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards.
Secondary students who participated in band reported the
lowest lifetime and current use of all substances (alcohol, tobacco, illicit
drugs). — Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse Report. Reported in
Houston Chronicle, January 1998
The College Board identifies the arts as one of the six
basic academic subject areas students should study in order to succeed in
college. — Academic Preparation for
College: What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do, 1983 [still in use], The
College Board, New York
The very best engineers and technical designers in the
Silicon Valley are, nearly without exception, practicing
musicians. — "The Paradox of the
Silicon Savior," as reported in "The Case for Sequential Music
Education in the Core Curriculum of the Public Schools,"
The arts create jobs, increase the local tax base, boost
tourism, spur growth in related businesses (hotels, restaurants, printing,
etc.) and improve the overall quality of life for our cities and towns. On the
national level, nonprofit arts institutions and organizations generate an
estimated $37 billion in economic activity, and return $3.4 billion in federal
income taxes to the U.S. Treasury each year. — American Arts Alliance
Fact Sheet.
Benefit Two: Success in School
Success in society, of course, is predicated on success in
school. Any music teacher or parent of a music student can call to mind
anecdotes about effectiveness of music study in helping children become better
students. Skills learned through the discipline of music, these stories
commonly point out, transfer to study skills, communication skills, and
cognitive skills useful in every part of the curriculum. Another common variety
of story emphasizes the way that the discipline of music study — particularly
through participation in ensembles — helps students learn to work effectively
in the school environment without resorting to violent or inappropriate
behavior. And there are a number of hard facts that report about the ways that
music study is correlated with success in school:
Music a core subject
“The term ‘core academic subjects’ means English, reading
or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and
government, economics, arts, history, and geography.” — No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, Title IX, Part A, Sec. 9101 (11)
In an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data on
more than 25,000 secondary school students (NELS:88, National Education
Longitudinal Survey), researchers found that students who report consistent
high levels of involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high
school years show “significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by
grade 12.” This observation holds regardless of students’ socio-economic
status, and differences in those who are involved with instrumental music vs.
those who are not is more significant over time. — “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development.” Los
Angeles CA: The Imagination
Project at UCLA
Graduate School
of Education and Information Studies, 1999.
Students with coursework/experience in music performance
and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT: students in music performance
scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and
students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points
higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation. — Profile of SAT Program Test Takers.
Princeton, NJ:
The College Entrance Examination Board, 2001.
Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the
undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66% of music
majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of
any group. 44% of biochemistry majors were admitted. — As reported in "The Case for Music in the Schools," Phi Delta
Kappan, February 1994
Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of
1988 showed that music participants received more academic honors and awards
than non-music students, and that the percentage of music participants
receiving A’s and B’s was higher than the percentage of non-participants
receiving those grades. — NELS: 88 First
Follow-up, 1990, National
Center for Education Statistics, Washington DC
Benefit three: Success in Developing Intelligence
Success in school and in society depends on an array of
abilities. Without joining the intense ongoing debate about the nature of
intelligence as a basic ability, we can demonstrate that some measures of a
child’s intelligence are indeed increased with music instruction. Once again,
this burgeoning data supports a
long-established base of anecdotal knowledge to the effect that music education
makes kids smarter. What is new and especially compelling, however, is a combination
of tightly controlled behavioral studies and groundbreaking neurological
research that show how music study can actively contribute to brain
development:
A research team exploring the link between music and
intelligence reported that music training is far superior to computer
instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills, the
skills necessary for learning math and science. — "Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool
children's spatial-temporal reasoning," Neurological Research, Vol. 19,
February 1997
“The musician is constantly adjusting decisions on tempo, tone, style,
rhythm, phrasing, and feeling--training the brain to become incredibly good at
organizing and conducting numerous activities at once. Dedicated practice of
this orchestration can have a great payoff for lifelong attentional skills,
intelligence, and an ability for self-knowledge and expression.” — John J.
Ratey, MD. A User’s Guide to the Brain. New
York: Pantheon Books, 2001.
Researchers at the University of Montreal used various
brain imaging techniques to investigate brain activity during musical tasks and
found that sight-reading musical scores and playing music both activate regions
in all four of the cortex's lobes; and that parts of the cerebellum are also
activated during those tasks. —
Distributed neural network underlying musical sight reading and keyboard
performance (1992).
In a study conducted by Dr. Timo Krings, pianists and
non-musicians of the same age and sex were required to perform complex
sequences of finger movements. Their brains were scanned using a technique
called “functional magnetic resource imaging” (FMRI) which detects the activity
levels of brain cells. The non-musicians were able to make the movements as correctly
as the pianists, but less activity was detected in the pianists’ brains. Thus,
compared to non-musicians, the brains of pianists are more efficient at making
skilled movements. These findings show that musical training can enhance brain
function. — “Cortical Activation Patterns
during Complex Motor Tasks in Piano Players and Control Subjects. A Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.” Neuroscience Letters 278, no. 3 (2000)
A McGill
University study found
that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved
significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period.
They also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the
students given piano instruction. —
Effects of three years of piano instruction on children's cognitive abilities,
academic achievement, and self-esteem. Paper presented at the meeting of the
Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix,
AZ. (1998)
Researchers found that children given piano lessons
significantly improved in their spatial- temporal IQ scores (important for some
types of mathematical reasoning) compared to children who received computer
lessons, casual singing, or no lessons. —
Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children's spatial
temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 1-8 (1997).
Benefit four: Success in Life
Each of us wants our children — and the children of all
those around us — to achieve success in school, success in employment, and
success in the social structures through which we move. But we also want our
children to experience “success” on a broader scale. Participation in music
during the formative school years, brings countless benefits to each individual
throughout life. The benefits may be psychological or spiritual, and they may
even be physical as well:
An Auburn
University study found
significant increases in overall self-concept of at-risk children participating
in an arts program that included music, movement, dramatics and art, as
measured by the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale. — N.H. Barry, Project ARISE: Meeting the needs
of disadvantaged students through the arts, Auburn University, 1992
“Studying music
encourages self-discipline and diligence, traits that carry over into
intellectual pursuits and that lead to effective study and work habits. An
association of music and math has, in fact, long been noted. Creating and
performing music promotes self-expression and provides self-gratification while
giving pleasure to others. In medicine, increasing published reports
demonstrate that music has a healing effect on patients. For all these reasons,
it deserves strong support in our educational system, along with the other
arts, the sciences, and athletics.” — Michael
E. DeBakey, M.D., Leading Heart Surgeon,
Baylor College
of Music.
“Music has a great power for bringing people together.
With so many forces in this world acting to drive wedges between people, it’s
important to preserve those things that help us experience our common humanity.”
— Ted Turner, Turner Broadcasting System.
“Music is one way for young people to connect with
themselves, but it is also a bridge for connecting with others. Through music,
we can introduce children to the richness and diversity of the human family, and
to the myriad rhythms of life.” — Daniel
A. Carp, Eastman Kodak Company Chairman and CEO.
“The nation’s top business executives agree that arts
education programs can help repair weaknesses in American education and better
prepare workers for the 21st century.”— “The
Changing Workplace is Changing Our View of Education.” Business Week, October
1996.
“Music education opens doors that help children pass from
school into the world around them — a world of work, culture, intellectual
activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing
our children with a complete education that includes music.” —
Gerald Ford, former President,
United States of America
“Music is about communication, creativity, and
cooperation, and, by studying music in school, students have the opportunity to
build on these skills, enrich their lives, and experience the world from a new
perspective.” — Bill Clinton, former
President, United States of
America
Information
provided by various Music Advocacy organizations.
Specific annotated
notes and specific study information on file
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