Edutopia - October/November 2008 - (Page 45)

learns “And we get better grades in other subjects,” says Samuela, “especially mathematics. Latin helps us understand rules better, whether they’re in math or in literature.” She has discovered something neuroscientists, psychologists, biologists, and even mathematicians have been exploring. It may indeed be that the rules of Latin are good training for those of mathematics, but in this case the effect of music is powerful. This melding of music and poetry turns out to be more than just an entertaining little stunt. Decades of studies in the United States, Germany, and elsewhere demonstrate some interesting facts about how music aids learning in many ways— easier, deeper, and more permanent ways. Research from a wide variety of sources illustrate that there is a connection between music and the physical and functional development of the brain. Neurologist Frank Wilson, a former professor at the University of California at San Francisco, has found that involvement in music connects and develops the motor systems of the brain in a way that’s unlike other activities. Brain-scan research shows that music more fully involves brain A Moveable Songfest functions (both in the left and right hemispheres) than other Schola cantans has received a substantial amount of publicity, activities studied. Wilson believes these ⇒ndings con⇒rm that in print and on television, throughout Sicily. But it isn’t well music is necessary for the total development of the brain and known elsewhere in Italy. Interestingly, however, word of the program reached Jack Lang, the former French minister of culthe individual as a whole. ture, who has been exploring ways in which to adopt this methA large body of research supports Wilson’s point: • According to the National Education Longitudinal Study od in French schools. It shouldn’t be so dif⇒cult to replicate, but of 1988, music students received more academic honors and the teacher’s enthusiasm, as I saw myself, is the one element that cannot be missing—the sine qua non, as Signore Vento’s awards than nonmusic students. students would understand it. • Noted physician, biologist, Yet whatever subject might be and author Lewis Thomas found ONLINEVIDEO susceptible to musical arrangethat compared to students in other NOTABLE NOTES ment, it is worth noting a point undergraduate disciplines, a highFor an audio sample of Sicilian Latin students in University of Wisconsin profeser percentage of music majors (66 full voice, click on the link at the bottom of the page at edutopia.org/teaching-latin-music sor Frances Rauscher makes. She percent) are accepted to medical emphasizes that music’s bene⇒ts school. aren’t reserved solely for those • Students taking courses in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on who are good at it. “By demonstrating that music improves the the SAT than students with no arts participation. Music perfor- intellectual functioning of all children, we have shown that mumance students scored 53 points higher on the verbal portion sic education is essential for optimal cognitive development,” and 39 points higher on the math section. Music-appreciation she writes. “Music education is essential for all students, not students scored 61 points higher on the verbal and 42 points just the gifted and talented.” The students at Vincenzo Fardella high school may not higher on the math. • Music is represented in mechanisms widely distributed know, or care, about what music is doing to their synapses. But throughout the brain, whereas other types of information— some who frankly admit that “Latin used to put me to sleep” visual or movement—are located in one area. Studies show that have found not only that Virgil rocks in the musical sense but the very structure of music, and the way we use it, is similar in also that ancient Latin poets can still touch their hearts. The “Pervigilium Veneris” ends on an unexpectedly poignant note, fundamental ways to language structure and our use of it. • Spatial reasoning, a higher-brain function critical to per- as the author hears a nightingale singing, and murmurs, “illa forming complex tasks, including mathematics, can be im- cantat, nos tacemus; quando ver venit meum?” “She sings, we are proved by music lessons, and even just by listening to music. In a silent. When will my springtime come?” No teenager could fail to respond to that, and the results 1992–1993 pilot study, preschoolers with several months of music training scored signi⇒cantly higher than predicted on a task are evident in their improved grades. “It’s not that they studied designed to measure spatial-temporal reasoning. Two schools more,” Maurizio Vento concludes, “but that they studied with participated in the study: a middle-income school and a school more love.” e for at-risk children. Although the effect was signi⇒cant for both Erla Zwingle, a contributing writer for Edutopia, is based in Venice. schools, the at-risk school children improved by 91 percent. as the w rld Techno as Tutor: High school students in Trapani, Sicily, learn their Latin by setting ancient poems to thoroughly modern tunes. EDUTOPIA.ORG EDUTOPIA 45 http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-latin-music http://www.EDUTOPIA.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Edutopia - October/November 2008

Edutopia - October/November 2008 Contents UpFront Feedback Dispatches Sage Advice Ask Ellen Head of Class Cool Schools Design: Lessons from the Mall The Bucks Start Here Go Global: Virgil Rocks Big Ideas: Powerful Learning Mapping Their Futures Heart & Soul Pop Quiz: Suze Orman

Edutopia - October/November 2008

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