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Music in Our Schools

Deborah Jeter

March is "Music in our Schools" month. Music is often thought of by the populus as being a subject of the emotions, but it is so much more than that. Music is a "thinking" subject. Music is taught through sequencing. Sequencing is logic, is it not? Then let's make others aware that music is all-encompassing in giving children basic strategies in organizing their thoughts. Some of the concepts taught through music help develop our critical thinking skills.

"The earlier that children develop sensitivity to the standards of sound thought and reasoning, the more likely they will develop desirable intellectual habits and become open-minded persons responsive to reasonable persuasion." The previous statement is an excerpt from the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking.

Mission: Critical - (Thinking) is a site that offers exercises that develop critical thinking skills. The goal of Mission: Critical is to create a "virtual lab," capable of familiarizing users with the basic concepts of critical thinking in a self-paced, interactive environment. Even though the site is not about music, the list of skills could be taught through the concepts of learning to read and write the language of music.

Children's learning and the arts - (BIRTH TO AGE 8) All the documentation that I have read and all of the music education workshops that I have attended, have purported that the critical years of psychological develop for learning and for the development of intelligence are within the first four years. The arts, expressly, music, have a profound effect on the molding of the mind. Yet, with all the evidence that music is so critical in developing self awareness, critical thinking skills and creativity, the state in which I live still requires more music education for the older children 9-11 years old, than they do the five years, who would reap greater benefits. The pre-publication edition of the task force's report, Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections, was made available this summer. A .pdf version of the report is on our site at http://aep-arts.org, in the "Hightlights" or "Task Forces & Advocacy" section. Presently, the task force is investigating funding sources and hopes to make a printed version of the report available by Spring 99.

Baby Talk offers an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune entitled, The Development of the Human Brain. One of the statements in this article says, "Babies who have more sensory experiences are able to develop more brain power. Dr. Frederick Goodwin who is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health participated in some of this research. His conclusion? "You can't make a 70 IQ person into a 120 IQ person, but you can change their IQ measure in different ways, perhaps as much as 20 points up or down, based on their environment."