Joan Li doesn’t have to read the literature on this. The quote is from Plato, the Greek philosopher, who was born about 2,500 years ago. The website includes a quote that shows just how long people have understand the value of music lessons: “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.” How almost all of the winners in the nation’s most prestigious math and science competition for high school seniors play an instrument. How schools with music programs have higher attendance and graduation rates. There are studies showing how teens who take music in middle school score “significantly higher” on algebra assignments in ninth grade than those who don’t. The website for the NAMM Foundation includes a link to a collection of research citations and quotes about the cognitive, educational and social benefits of music lessons. This is still an opportunity for us to light that spark.” “Maybe the arts will become their passion for life. “Even in COVID, we’re trying to provide lessons that give students the chance to find that thing that they love,” said Kimberlee Broaddus, assistant principal for the Poway district’s X-Ploration model. The whole class may play along while the teacher leads them in a song - but only the teacher’s microphone will be on. Students might be broken up into smaller groups online, where they can listen to each other play and collaborate on songs. There will still be some playing - on recorders in some schools, on rhythm sticks and tambourines in others. Teaching them how to listen to music, how to recognize patterns in the notes, how to create their own song snippets. So the emphasis now on schools throughout the county is on the non-performance aspects of music. (Ensembles you see performing on YouTube, each player in her or his screen-square, are actually separate videos edited together.)Įven when schools open for in-person teaching, music classes figure to be problematic, given that the novel coronavirus is spread through the air and kids would be blowing on instruments and singing out loud. Zoom and other online platforms aren’t set up for everyone to be playing their instruments at the same time. Not everyone had access to computers, let alone instruments. The sudden shift to remote learning in the spring was chaotic. Pre-pandemic, the excitement came from recorders to play and ukuleles to strum and plastic buckets from Home Depot to bang on. What that showed her is that classes in elementary school are mostly about generating excitement for music, not directing a child toward a particular instrument. She’s starting her 10th year as a teacher.īorn into a family with musical interests - one uncle played professionally - she started on the piano at 5 before her elementary-school introduction to the flute. “I am a product of the school system here, and I know the value of getting passionate about music early,” said Dye, who went on to get a degree in music education at San Diego State. One of her colleagues is a woman who taught Dye how to play the flute - when Dye was a fifth-grader. In the “before” times, Robin Dye was a traveling teacher, showing up once a week at eight elementary schools in San Diego to introduce fifth-graders to music. If we can make the best of this situation, we’ll all - students, teachers, parents - be better people when we come out of it.” Richardson, recently named one of five teachers of the year in the county, paused for a few seconds and then continued. We can still do music things and be successful.” “Music right now is so important for kids because it is such a good outlet for dealing with life’s struggles,” said Paula Richardson, a music teacher at Wilson Middle School in City Heights. Now teachers throughout the county find themselves improvising, a familiar skill for musicians, but one deployed this time with potentially long-lasting implications for how many students get engaged enough in the art form to want to keep doing it. In the Poway Unified School District, a team of “X-Ploration” teachers has been rotating among the elementary schools for the past five years to make sure all 16,000 students get introduced to musical concepts like rhythm, beat and tempo. “Research has shown that an arts education improves school climate and culture, and increases student and parent engagement - ultimately contributing to improved academic achievement,” the district said then. It was just two years ago that the San Diego Unified School District was celebrating a milestone: 100 percent of its schools now offered music instruction.
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