Some general
statistics and facts:
Students of the arts continue to outperform their non-arts peers on
the SAT, according to reports by the College Entrance Examination Board.
In 2005, SAT takers with coursework/experience in music performance
scored 56 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 39 points
higher on the math portion than students with no coursework or experience
in the arts. - National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts
The arts provide young people with authentic learning experiences that
engage their minds, hearts, and bodies. Engagement in the arts nurtures
the development of cognitive, social, and personal competencies.
While learning in other disciplines may often focus on development of
a single skill or talent, the arts regularly engage multiple skills and
abilities. Music requires the integration of eye-hand coordination,
rhythm, tonality, symbol recognition and interpretation, attention span,
and other factors that represent synthetic aspects of human intelligence.
In addition, critical thinking, problem-solving, and learning how to work
cooperatively toward shared goals are all skills which are reinforced
through music education.
Music is one of the seven intelligences identified in the brain and
the only one that utilizes all seven intelligences simultaneously.
Thus, students who participate in music courses exercise more of their
brain than in any other course they take in school.
Band reinforces the skills of cooperation which are among the
qualities now most highly valued in business and industry, especially in
high-tech contexts. Members are required to shift from an I/Me focus to a
We/Us focus. Instead of the logic being, "what's in it for me," it
becomes "what's in it for us?" Band is a group effort which focuses on
group goals and the completion of those goals in each and every rehearsal
and performance.
The benefits conveyed by music education can be grouped into four
categories:
Success in society
Success in school
Success in developing intelligence
Success in life
Benefit One: Success in Society
The U.S. Department of Education lists the arts as subjects that
college-bound middle and junior high school students should take, stating
"Many colleges view participation in the arts and music as a valuable
experience that broadens students' understanding and appreciation of the
world around them. It is also well known and widely recognized that the
arts contribute significantly to children's intellectual development." In
addition, one year of Visual and Performing Arts is recommended for
college-bound high school students. - Getting Ready for College Early:
A Handbook for Parents of Students in the Middle and Junior High School
Years, U.S. Department of Education
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, The College Board
The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley
industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. - Grant
Venerable, "The Paradox of the Silicon Savior"
Benefit Two: Success in School
In an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data on more than
25,000 secondary school students (NELS: 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. - Catterall, James S.,
Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga. "Involvement in the Arts and Human
Development: General Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music and
Theater Arts." Los Angeles, CA: The Imagination Project at UCLA Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies
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. - College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT
Program Test Takers. Princeton, NJ: The College Entrance Examination
Board, 2001
Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study showed that music
participants received more academic honors and awards than non-music
students, and that the percentage of music participants receiving As,
As/Bs, and Bs was higher than the percentage of non-participants receiving
those grades. - NELS: First Follow-up, National Center for Education
Statistics, Washington DC
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
Benefit Three: Success in Developing Intelligence
"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
attention skills, intelligence, and an ability for self-knowledge and
expression." - Ratey John J., MD. A User's Guide to the Brain. New
York: Pantheon Books, 2001
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. - Shaw, Rauscher, Levine,
Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, "Music training causes long-term enhancement
of preschool children's spatial-temporal reasoning," Neurological
Research, Vol. 19
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. - Sergent, J., Zuck, E., Tenial, S.,
and MacDonall, B.
Researchers in Leipzig found that brain scans of musicians showed
larger planum temporale (a brain region related to some reading skills)
than those of non-musicians. They also found that the musicians had a
thicker corpus callosum (the bundle of nerve fibers that connects the two
halves of the brain) than those of non-musicians, especially for those who
had begun their training before the age of seven. - Schlaug, G., Jancke,
L., Huang, Y., and Steinmetz, H. Proceedings of the 3d international
conference for music perception and cognition (pp. 417-418). Liege,
Belgium
Benefit Four: Success in Life
"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
At perhaps no other time have music and arts education been more
important. Apart from their obvious benefits, music and the other arts
produce critical thinkers, people who are decision makers. In the
information age, our company needs people with these critical thinking
skills. - Susan Driggers, Bell South Corporation
"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
"During the Gulf War, the few opportunities I had for relaxation I
always listened to music, and it brought to me great peace of mind. I have
shared my love of music with people throughout this world, while listening
to the drums and special instruments of the Far East, Middle East, Africa,
the Caribbean, and the Far North - and all of this started with the music
appreciation course that I was taught in a third-grade elementary class in
Princeton, New Jersey. What a tragedy it would be if we lived in a world
where music was not taught to children." - H. Norman Schwarzkopf,
General, U.S. Army, retired
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