1995 OHIO STUDY FINDS ELEMENTARY PULL-OUT

Keeping a Musical Beat Is Linked to Academic Skills

In a 1994 feature in the Los Angeles Times, writer Maia Davis
describes a motor-skills class at an elementary school in Ventura,
California:
 

With all eyes trained on their teacher, the group of second-graders
at Ventura's Mound School tried to follow her every move as they
clapped their hands, slapped their thighs, and kicked their heels to
the tune of bluegrass music.

But some children were struggling: Their hands hit their left knees
when they should have gone to the right.  Their legs flew up into
kicks at the moment that they should have hit the floor.

"It's kind of hard to get the message down to your legs as fast as
the music," 7-year-old Kerianne Hewitt said.

The elementary school launched the (motor-skills) class four years
ago based on research showing that the ability to respond
physically to a musical beat is closely linked to children's skills in
reading, writing and concentration.

"We have noticed (the class) helps kids concentrate and hold their
attention span longer‰Ű|We have seen kids who have difficulty
reading and writing improve because they are able to organize their
thoughts better," said Principal Beverly McCaslin.

Teacher Joanne Bowie leads the motor-skills instruction every
Friday for each of the school's first through fifth-grade classes.

During some classes, the students clap, march, or jump rope.  In
others, they recite poems to music. "I try to present it in a variety
of ways just to keep the interest up," Bowie said.

But the goal in all the class activities is to help children learn to
keep a steady one-two beat with the music.

Bowie bases her instruction mainly on workshops she has taken
from Phyllis S. Weikart, a retired physical education professor
from the University of Michigan.

A nationally recognized expert in motor-skills development for
children, Weikart maintains that children should begin to develop
an innate sense of timing when they are infants.

When care-givers pat or stroke babies to the tune of a lullaby, for
example, they are helping the children make a connection between
what they hear and what they do, Weikart said in an interview
from her Michigan home.

That "hearing-feeling connection," as Weikart calls it, is what
allows children to listen to something that is being said or watch
something that is being done and follow the directions.  'What
you're linking is action, thought and language,' she said.

And having a sense of inner timing allows children to speak or
read in whole sentences instead of just one word at a time.

But studies show the number of children with the ability to keep a
steady beat has declined in recent years, from a range of 80% to
90% to about 10%, Weikart said.

"I feel it's probably the most fundamental of all the problems we
face in education today," she said.

(Weikart) believes that the fault lies partly with adults who
mistakenly believe hat children respond better to the rhythm of
words or syllables than to a steady beat.  Many adults today, for
example, clap the hand game "Patty Cake" with children to the
rhythm of the words' syllables rather than to a steady one-two beat.

 "What's happening today is that the children are receiving
movement stimulation in rhythm rather than in beat," she said.

At Mound, Bowie said she finds at the beginning of each year that
only about one-third of the students can independently keep a
steady beat.  By the end of the year, the number climbs to two-
thirds.

And the children said they have become more confident about their
abilities to move to music.

"I was just really shy (at first)," 8-year-old Jordan Frye said.  "It's
just really neat to see that you can dance."

Source: http://www.tcams.org/davis.htm

TEACHERS OF ALL DISCIPLINES DISCUSS THE EFFECTS OF ARTS LEARNING 

In our Week 157 issue, we discussed the results of a 1999 Columbia University study describing the impact of arts education on 2,046 children in grades four through eight. The study found that students with the most experience in the arts scored highest on tests of creativity, expression, and problem-solving. This week we examine the results of surveys and interviews that the authors of the study conducted with elementary and middle school teachers of all subjects. The teachers are from eighteen public schools in New York, Connecticut, Virginia, and South Carolina. 

TRANSFER OF ARTS ABILITIES Through these interviews and surveys, the authors found five specific types of abilities that teachers described as coming from arts experience. These five "dimensions of ability" are the ability to: 1) Express ideas and feelings openly and thoughtfully. 2) Form relationships among different items of experience and layer them in thinking through an idea or problem. 3) Conceive or imagine different vantage points of an idea or problem and to work toward a resolution. 4) Construct and organize thoughts and ideas into meaningful units or wholes. 5) Focus perception on an item or experience and sustain this focus over a period of time. The abilities listed above can transfer to all studies and disciplines. 

The following situations occur in classrooms and in real-life events, and they are identified through this study as contexts in which arts-related skills are especially useful. These situations include: 1) A need for pupils to figure out or elaborate on ideas on their own. 2) A need to structure and organize thinking in light of different kinds of experiences. 3) Knowledge needs to be tested or demonstrated in new and original ways. 4) The learning task involves persistence, ownership, empathy, and collaboration. 

ARTS AND SCHOOL CLIMATE The surveys and interviews of teachers also provided some data about the impact of the arts on the climate of the school. "High Arts" refers to schools in which the students receive the most arts exposure; "Low Arts" refers to schools in which the students receive the least arts exposure. 

TEACHERS HAVE GOOD WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WITH EACH OTHER: High Arts: 47% Low Arts: 34% 

TEACHERS HAVE GOOD RAPPORT WITH STUDENTS: High Arts: 83% Low Arts: 38% 

TEACHERS PARTICIPATE IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES: High Arts: 81% Low Arts: 38% 

TEACHERS CONSIDER THEIR TEACHING INNOVATIVE: High Arts: 81% Low Arts: 38% 

ARE THE ARTS EXTRA-CURRICULAR OR CORE? The authors found that the answer to this question varied from school to school. In many schools with strong arts programs the arts teachers frequently collaborated with classroom teachers of other subjects. In one school, students learned about Vietnamese art, music and literature, read letters from soldiers who served in the Vietnam War, and visited the Vietnam War Memorial. The students then wrote a play based upon these experiences. In schools with limited arts exposure, or in schools in which the arts were not connected with the content of other disciplines, teachers and administrators considered the arts separate from the "core" curriculum.

 CONCLUSION The arts help to develop students' skills in problem solving, empathy, and creativity. These skills are useful in all disciplines and situations. The arts also have a positive impact on teachers' attitudes and school climate. The arts deal with human expression, and students learn to work with each other, express ideas and thoughts, and take ownership of their work. Students in the arts must present their work publicly, either through performance or exhibition, and this makes the arts a unique discipline. 

The arts are most effective when they are connected with the rest of the school curriculum and when students are allowed to explore topics from both an artistic and an academic perspective. Through connection with other subjects the arts become a central part of the learning experience, drawing upon the content of other disciplines and adding depth and quality to the learning process. 

Source: "Learning In and Through the Arts: Curriculum Implications" by Judith Burton, Robert Horowitz, and Hal Abeles, from the Center for Arts Education Research Teachers College, Columbia University; July 1999. 

This study is published in the compilation "Champions of Change." You can find a link for this study at www.pcah.gov

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