Using Music to Improve & Motivate our Children’s Education
My memories of the only time that music ever made an appearance in my education involve a class of ten year old boys standing around a piano and being asked to learn a song that I had never ever heard of before. Worse still I had never ever been informed what singing in tune involved, and as a result I recall standing there wondering why the sound of my own voice did not seem to quite fit in with those of my classmates. This was neither a pleasant introduction to learning music, nor an experience that allowed music to become a meaningful part of my education.
Looking back forty years later I feel utterly robbed of what music could have become in my life, and the paths it could have led me down. And bearing that I now play two or three different instruments with varying degrees of success, simply for the sheer enjoyment and relaxation it brings me, it is one of the few areas of any regret that I have in my life.
However as I have come to understand and appreciate in recent years, music has far more to offer us then simply joy and relaxation – and that is particularly the case when it comes to our children and their education. To our children it can make the difference between not only enjoying and motivating their education, but also the pleasure and effectiveness of the learning process itself.
Three years ago I attended a Musetude 2-day music course that claimed to be able to teach you how to play the piano and how to read music in 2 days. I went along initially believing it was impossible, but I hoped that it would somehow benefit the guitar and banjo playing skills I have developed over the last 30 years. To cut a long story short, it amazingly did work, and I did achieve what the course claimed I would.
However I learnt much more than I expected. I learnt about how the brain reacts to music, how certain processes can open our mind to achieve what we often think at first glance, is the impossible. I also learnt how particular types of music can calm us and then open our minds to be able to understand, process and learn information in ways that I never realised were possible. I learnt how music can stimulate our creativity and how playing the certain types of music when we are studying, can dramatically improve the learning process.
There is much information available about why and how music can play such an important role in the education of our children, but to fully appreciate the subject, and truly come to terms with the full potential of music in education, you really need to explore the subject yourself – and that investigation should be done with an open mind.
To help you start that search I have provided the following links that provide you will some very useful and interesting starting information.
The Psychology of Learning
The Brain-Based Method
The 4 Parts of the Brain
The 4th Brain – The Seat of Genius
The Left and Right Brain
Neurotransmitters
Music Makes Kids Smarter
Stimulating The Genius in Every Learner
I hope you enjoy your search as much as I did, and I hope that what you find and discover benefits your children and their education, as much as it has mine.
