Music Educators Journal http://mej.sagepub.

com/

Professional Notes: Brain-Based-Research Music Advocacy

Katie Cole Music Educators Journal 2011 98: 26 DOI: 10.1177/0027432111416574 The online version of this article can be found at: http://mej.sagepub.com/content/98/1/26.citation

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

National Association for Music Education

Additional services and information for Music Educators Journal can be found at: Email Alerts: http://mej.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://mej.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Sep 15, 2011 What is This?

Downloaded from mej.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on January 2, 2014

Professional Notes
Brain-Based-Research Music Advocacy
by Katie Cole

are looking at reducing music and art positions while increasing spending on administrative expenses, such as wireless Internet in classrooms. In times of difficulty, it is easy to see what many policymakers value. It would seem that many of them view the arts as a noncrucial element of a childs school curriculum. They want to cut music because they do not value music for its own sake, nor can they see how music could possibly help students in math, reading, or science. But what do the scientists say? According to neuroscientists from Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Oregon, policymakers should think twice before cutting arts programs in the schools.

Cognitive Benefits of the Arts

In May 2009 at the Learning, Arts, and the Brain Summit, sponsored by Johns Hopkins University and the Dana Foundation and held in Baltimore, Maryland, professors, public school teachers, museum directors, businesspeople, and administrators waited expectantly as neuroscientists ascended the platform to discuss their findings. The scientists stressed that their current research dealt with relationships, or correlations, rather than causes, which they believed would be determined by future studies. Relationships between the arts and student learning are numerous. Michael

Katie Cole. Photo by Ron Hoehn and courtesy of the author.

hy are the arts often on the top of the list of items to be cut during times of fiscal crisis? I read the news in neighboring counties with apprehension as schools listed their budget proposals and put the arts on the chopping block yet again. In many counties surrounding mine, there is talk of
Copyright 2011 National Association for Music Education DOI: 10.1177/0027432111416574 http://mej.sagepub.com

eliminating the elementary exploratory program, which includes being a part of band or orchestra. If the program were cut, students would not be able to start an instrument until they reached middle school. This would negatively affect student involvement in middle school and high school ensembles. Other counties

Katie Cole teaches vocal music at Charles Carroll Elementary School in Westminster, Maryland. She can be contacted at KLCOLE@carrollk12.org.

26

Downloaded from mej.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on January 2, 2014

Music Educators Journal September 2011

Posner, from the University of Oregon, found that the arts can generate sustained motivation that provides the cognitive benefit of strengthening executive attention networks in the brain, such as are found in the midline and lateral frontal areas.1 The arts can help students to pay better attention in school due to structural brain changes created when the students were engaged in practicing their art form. When students pick up an instrument and practice a tricky passage in the solo they are working on, they are not merely improving their solo. They are also developing a high level of concentration that will aid them when they are working on the next algebra problem. Posners finding concerning the relationship between the arts and the ability to pay attention is something that many musicians have experienced firsthand during their own school days. Elizabeth Spelke, from Harvard University, stated that there is a relationship between prolonged music training and geometrical skills. Research participants in three different studies involving elementary, middle, and high school students were given a series of tests involving mathematical and spatial tasks, such as locating an object under a bucket by looking at shapes on a map or finding the variants in the rotations of geometrical shapes. Spelke found that musician participants scored significantly higher than nonmusician participants on three separate tasks involving geometric properties.2 Spelke further stated that the results were not caused by differences in IQ, academic achievement, or socioeconomic factors; all these factors were controlled in her studies. She also reiterated that the music training must be prolonged; a student who takes the violin for a couple months and then quits would most likely not receive the same results as a student who had consistently played the violin for years.3 Another reason not to cut instrumental programs from elementary schools is that prolonged music instruction can strengthen the areas of the brain that are responsible for geometry skills. Spatial sensitivity in musicians seems

logical when one considers that string players need to mentally and kinesthetically divide the strings correctly to get the right notes every time they play. Pianists must have a good spatial command of the entire range of the keyboard, especially when sight-reading. Spelke states that she believes music encourages both melodic and spatial processing, even in the youngest children, which gives us an additional reason for a flourishing arts curriculum in our schools.4 There is also a relationship between reading fluency and the amount of music training a child has, according to the research of Brian Wandell, from Stanford University. (The participants in his threeyear study were forty-nine children ages seven to twelve.5) The study indicates that a child who reads rhythms and recognizes pitches on a staff fluently would most likely be able to demonstrate fluency when reading a book or story in class. Music reading is more complex than nonmusicians realize: the eyes send visual information to the brain, and the kinesthetic response comes a split-second later, when hands finger complex patterns, the embouchure loosens or tightens depending on register, and the tongue executes correct articulation. Pianists simultaneously read in two clefs. Singers must interpret rhythm and pitch while focusing on vowels and singing in foreign languages. Music develops the same cognitive skills that allow students to be fluent readers, which is a relationship that should interest reading specialists, classroom teachers, and eventually, policymakers. Wandell used new brain imaging technology to pinpoint the brain regions that were involved in reading ability. He found that the bundle of axons called the corpus callosum that connect the left and right hemispheres were more diffuse in participants who were good readers.6 Another study shows that musicians who had music training before age seven have larger corpus callosums than do nonmusicians.7 To add to the subject of extensive and widely distributed neural systems that Donald Hodges discusses in his article Implications of Music and Brain Research, the fact that the corpus

callosum is structurally changed in musicians also shows how influential arts study can be.8 Wandell also found a moderate relationship between music training and how well children could remember a series of numbers. He plans on investigating the relationship between music training and math skills by using brain imaging technology to examine the effect of the arts on areas of the brain that are also involved in mathematical skill development.9 Next, Gottfried Schlaug and Ellen Winner, from Harvard University, found that instrumental music training significantly changes the structure of the brain. Schlaug considers this longitudinal study to be the first to show brain changes in young children as a result of instrumental music instruction.10 The study started with fifty children ages five to seven who were just beginning to take violin or piano lessons and twenty-five children of the same age who were not learning an instrument. The beginning musician group had thirty-minute lessons each week, and the study lasted for four years. Because of the long length of the study and the young ages of the children, there was 50 percent attrition. By the second testing session, the beginning musician group performed better than the nonmusician group on motor-sequencing tasks and on rhythmic and melodic discrimination tasks. Schlaug saw that the changes in performance correlated with structural changes in the parts of the brain responsible for motor and auditory skills, such as the temporal lobe, the frontal lobe, and the cerebellum, of the musicians. There were also changes in the areas of the executive attention networks of the brain,11 a finding that agrees with those of Posner and of University of Michigan professor John Jonides. Because the brains of children studying music undergo structural change, you can expect that these changes will affect other skills. Jonides found that musicians were better able to memorize a group of words than nonmusicians when participants were allowed to practice

www.nafme.org

Downloaded from mej.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on January 2, 2014

27

memorizing the words.12 In other words, musicians develop rehearsal strategies that allow them to focus their attention, which in turn improves their long-term memory. Another finding involved the relationship between music and learning a second language. When Kevin Dunbar, from the University of Toronto at Scarborough, conducted a research study on second-language learning, he found that musicians learned the new language more proficiently and expressively than nonmusicians after one term of language instruction. Learning a second language highly involves the attention networks since one has to switch focus to one language while blocking out the other language at the same time.13 These are a few of the research studies that have been conducted, and there will be many more studies done in the future. Increasingly sensitive brain imaging technology makes it possible for scientists to delve deeper within the brain structures and networks. As a music educator, I am excited to see what comes next.

meetings, and they are the ones who are most likely to stand up for arts programs that are being cut if they see the value of doing so. Prepare a presentation using pictures from the winter or spring concert with each research finding to add a personal touch that makes the information even more relevant to the parents. During the meeting, hand out a list of arts resources that parents can refer to, perhaps a list of local music stores, books on music, and websites with music resources. 2. Share information via the school newsletter. This venue can be used to keep parents informed, not only about the school curriculum but also about recent findings in research. Include short blurbs from your students about why music is important to them. 3. Talk to the media specialist at your school to help you post research findings on your school website; you might be able to create a music section on the school website. 4. During you schools open house or back-to-school night, provide all visitors with a handout of research findings and a bowl of mints or chocolates near the sign-in sheet. 5. At winter and spring concerts, discuss student learning, and briefly share research findings. List research findings on the back of the concert program. 6. Invite parents and students to make music and play instruments during a Music Night or a Special Area Night at your school; after actively engaging the parents in music making, share research findings. 7. Be creative. Know your community and school population; you know what will reach your parents the best. Many times, parents are the ones who have prevented music programs from being cut, because parents realize how important music is to their childrens holistic development and cognitive growth.

Practical Applications
Why should teachers of the arts be aware of these research findings? All around us, arts positions are being eliminated or are at risk. Although we know the intrinsic value of the arts, many board members may never have picked up an instrument or sung a note in their lives. If there is nobody else advocating for us, we need to do it ourselves, and we need to have proof of the benefits of the arts stated in terms that nonmusicians can understand and respect. The more benefits of arts study we can list that are based on the research of neuroscientists, the stronger our case will be. It is crucial to enlist the help of parents. Here are some ways to do so: 1. Volunteer to speak at a ParentTeacher Association (PTA) or Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) meeting. The more vocal and involved parents tend to be present at PTA
28

In my county, we are fortunate to have a parent-based music advocacy group that already has tax-exempt status and a board of directors as well as a Facebook account where it posts recent information. The group meets once a month at a central location in the county, such as a high school. Each school is working toward finding parent representatives to be part of the music advocacy group so that the parents can attend the advocacy meetings and report the information back to other parents at their childrens school. If you already have a parent-based music advocacy group in your county, share the research findings with the members (perhaps with a PowerPoint presentation at an advocacy meeting) and ask them to disseminate the information to their respective schools. If you do not have a parent-based music advocacy group, you may want to discuss, with other music teachers in your county during a professional development day, the possibility of helping to form one in your county. Before you start discussing your countys needs, read articles written by music educators who have had experience with advocacy groups. In Organizing Your Parents for Effective Advocacy, Kenneth Elpus lists several things to consider when starting your parent advocacy group, such as how to develop an executive board, what to think about when drafting bylaws, and how to apply for nonprofit status.14 Propose that each teacher think of parents who are already supportive of the music program, and tell the teachers to contact those parents with the intent of having them be part of the advocacy group. For now, any of the activities listed above can be done with or without an advocacy group, and they are simple enough not to take an inordinate amount of your time. Yet they are an effective way of conveying important research information to parents. We teach in a public school system that measures learning strictly by how well students do in reading, writing, and math. But where did these narrow measurements of achievement come from? Certainly not from cognitive scientists. Gottfried Schlaug, director of the Music
Music Educators Journal September 2011

Downloaded from mej.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on January 2, 2014

and Neuroimaging Laboratory/Stroke Recovery Laboratory and division chief of cerebrovascular diseases at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, sums the whole thing up nicely: I would challenge everybody to come up with another activity that engages as much real estate in the brain as music-making does.15 The neuroscientists who spoke at the Brain Summit recognize the value of the arts. They are our advocates from afar. Years of their devoted research have culminated in scientific proof of the intrinsic and extrinsic value of our art form. It is our job to use the unshakeable strength that their research provides to reach crowds who can only identify with facts and figures. If they want facts and figures, we have them. Lets share them with others now.

National Association for Music Education Announces the Creation of

NOTES
1. Michael Posner et al., How Arts Training Inuences Cognition, in Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition, comp. Michael Gazzaniga, ed. Carolyn Asbury and Barbara Rich (New York: Dana Press, 2008), 110. 2. Elizabeth Spelke, Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems at the Foundations of Mathematics and Science, in Asbury and Rich, Learning, Arts, and the Brain, 1749. 3. Ibid. 4. Elizabeth Spelke, Section 3: Summary of Neuroscience Research, in Neuroeducation: Learning, Arts, and the Brain, comp. Mariale Hardiman et al., ed. Barbara Rich and Johanna Goldberg (New York: Dana Press, 2009), 1721. 5. Brian Wandell et al., Training in the Arts, Reading, and Brain Imaging, in Asbury and Rich, Learning, Arts, and the Brain, 5160. 6. Ibid. 7. Gottfried Schlaug et al., Increased Corpus Callosum Size in Musicians, Neuropsychologia 33 (1995): 104755. 8. Donald A. Hodges, Implications of Music and Brain Research. Music Educators Journal 87, no. 2 (September 2000): 17.

Touching the Lives of 20 Million Children

Give A Note Foundation was established by the leaders of the National Association for Music Education in order to expand and increase music education opportunities for all children and help them develop skills needed for success in the 21st century.

To make a donation, please visit www.giveanote.org

9. Brian Wandell et al., Training in the Arts, 5160. 10. Ellen Winner and Gottfried Schlaug, Section 3: Summary of Neuroscience Research, in Rich and Goldberg, Neuroeducation, 2328. 11. Ibid. 12. John Jonides, Musical Skill and Cognition, in Asbury and Rich, Learning, Arts, and the Brain, 1116.

13. Kevin Dunbar, Arts Education, the Brain, and Language, in Asbury and Rich, Learning, Arts, and the Brain, 8192. 14. Kenneth Elpus, Organizing Your Parents for Effective Advocacy, Music Educators Journal 95, no. 2 (December 2008): 5661. 15. Gottfried Schlaug, Section 3: Summary of Neuroscience Research, in Rich and Goldberg, Neuroeducation, 26.

www.nafme.org

Downloaded from mej.sagepub.com at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on January 2, 2014

29