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Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools
Instrumental Music Program
Stanley F. Michalski, Jr., Coordinator
Band Enrolment – 2011-2012:
St. Ann - 19 St. Matthew – 49 HTCMS – 110
St. Gabriel – 29 St. Mark – 40 St. Mark MS - 58
St. Patrick – 30 OLA – 19 CCHS – 88
Insights Gained Into Arts and Smarts
By Debra Viadero
Findings released this week from three years of studies by neuroscientists and psychologists at seven universities help amplify scientists’ understanding of how training in the arts might contribute to improving the general thinking skills of children and adults.
“We tend to think of the artist, on the one hand, and scientists and mathematicians, on the other, as fundamentally different people,” said Elizabeth S. Spelke, one of the scholars who took part in the research project. “I think the work done here suggests a much closer connection between the cognitive processes that give rise to the arts and the cognitive processes that give rise to the sciences.”
The idea that the arts, and music in particular, could make children smarter in other ways gained currency in the 1990s, after a pair of researchers published a study showing that college students performed better on some mathematical tests after listening to a 10-minute Mozart sonata.
The news led to some widely reported, if fleeting, efforts to promote music learning. Georgia legislators, in fact, even voted to provide parents of newborns with tapes of classical music.
But most neuroscientists viewed such policy moves as premature: The studies never definitively determined whether exposure to music, or other arts, causes changes in the brain that sharpen other kinds of thinking skills. Left unsettled, experts say, is whether the arts make people smarter or whether smart people simply gravitate to the arts.
Results of a Recent Gallup Poll
Funded by the National Association of Music Merchants
93% agreed music is part of a well-rounded
education.
86% felt all schools should offer music as part of the curriculum.
88% believe that music helps a child's overall intellectual
development.
85% stated that communities should provide financial support for music
education programs in schools.
71% believe music education should be mandated by the states to ensure
that every child has an opportunity to study music in school.
88% believe music helps chi1dren make new friends.
84% believe music teaches children how to get along with others.
70% believe participation in school music programs often corresponds to
better grades and test scores.
81% of the adults believe music is a very important part of life.
81% believe music brings the family together:
96% of the teenage respondents agreed that learning to play an
instrument is something they will always be g1ad they did.
“Where words fail, music speaks.” Hans Christian Andersen
“Without music, life is a journey through a desert.” Pat Conroy
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