Why Music is an Essential Part of Your Child's Education

• The study of music affects student's abilities in attention, processing and sequencing.
• The study of music has a positive affect on the brain's processing of language. The younger the student, the better.

"...second grade Harmony project participants in Kraus’s study made grade-appropriate improvements in their ability to read during their first year of music making while matched controls attending the same schools did not. In fact, those who had not studied music showed a decline in reading skills between second and third grade, following a national trend in which the education gap between rich and poor students widens over the first few years of schooling. “Existing research indicates that kids from poor homes are not learning to read in the first four years of school – while kids from middle-class and affluent homes are,” says Dr. Margaret Martin, founder of the Harmony Project. “Given the importance of reading in achieving an education, this finding is stunning.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/using-music-to-close-the-academic-gap/280362/

Read about the Harmony Project: http://www.voanews.com/a/music-helps-impoverished-children-perform-better-in-school/2477423.html

• Music instruction physically changes the brain.
  • Musicians have an increased corpus callosum (the part of the brain that communicates between left and right brain), and increased grey matter (involved in processing).
  • The younger the child, the more pronounced the changes, which last into adulthood.

“Not only does music instruction improve communication skills and create a brain and nervous system that is more attuned to sound, which is important for both music and language," says Kraus, “but music can fundamentally alter the nervous system to create better learners.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/using-music-to-close-the-academic-gap/280362/

• Changes in brain structure can happen with as little as 15 months of music instruction in early childhood.

Here, for the first time, we demonstrate structural brain changes after only 15 months of musical training in early childhood, which were correlated with improvements in musically relevant motor and auditory skills.

http://www.musicianbrain.com/papers/Hyde_MusicTraining_BrainPlasticity_nyas_04852.pdf

• The study of music teaches grit.

Music education teaches resilience. Students are not instantly gratified; it takes years to master an instrument. Students must use sustained periods of intense practice (focused attention) to improve, and failure is part of the process. Talent will only take a student so far; one must develop grit if they are to reach their potential.

http://www.musicparentsguide.com/2016/03/07/why-teaching-grit-through-music-instruction-is-needed-in-every-school/

• Performance Groups (Band, Choir, Orchestra) provide an identity for students, a safe haven in the school, and a place to belong

In a 2009 TED talk where he discussed the value of music education, Abreu quoted Mother Teresa: “the most miserable and tragic thing about poverty is not the lack of bread or roof, but the feeling of being nobody, of not being anyone, the lack of identification, lack of public esteem.”

Music education provides students with benefits that outlast formal music training. It provides opportunities for advancement within, as well as beyond, the music community. It produces observable economic benefits, but also greatly increases morale among impoverished children – evidence that music education is an oft-overlooked weapon against poverty.

--http://www.borgenmagazine.com/music-education-fight-poverty/

• The study of music can be especially important for low income students and students at risk.

“The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth,” a 2012 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that 48 percent of at-risk students who had low arts involvement attended college, while 71 percent of at-risk students who intensive arts involvement attended college.

https://musiceducationworks.wordpress.com/tag/music-and-poverty/

• Music Education has the potential to Close the Gap

Several ongoing, five-year studies are looking at the neurological impact of community-based music training on lower income students (who do not have access to private music lessons) are already yielding positive results.

"Preliminary results suggest that not only does school and community-based music instruction indeed have an impact on brain functioning, but that it could possibly make a significant difference in the academic trajectory of lower-income kids."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/using-music-to-close-the-academic-gap/280362/

Also: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-lessons-combat-povertys-effect-on-the-brain/

• Children in lower Income communities and schools are disproportionally likely to receive less musical instruction.

While wealthier school districts can compensate for budget cuts that reduce or eliminate music programs with private funding, low-income school districts cannot, so the kids who might benefit most from music education are often the least likely to get it. “One certainly hopes,” Iversen says, “that the results of these kinds of studies will cause a re-evaluation of the role of arts education in schools.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/using-music-to-close-the-academic-gap/280362/