Can music really make your child smarter?

Kids who study music do better in school and in life!

· Music lessons have been shown to improve a child’s performance in school. After eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers tested showed a 46% boost in their spatial IQ, which is crucial for higher brain functions such as complex mathematics. –Frances Rauscher, Ph.D., Gordon Shaw, Ph.D, University of California, Irvine

· Mozart’s Piano Sonata K448 was found to significantly increase spatial scores of college students on IQ tests when the Sonata was listened to for 10 minutes, dubbed the “Mozart Effect.” - From Nature, Copyright 1993. Drs. Rauscher and Shaw, University of California. Irvine

· Disadvantaged preschoolers display dramatic improvements in spatial reasoning ability after music training. –Drs. Rauscher and Shaw. University of California. Irvine

· There is a direct correlation between improved SAT scores and the length of time spent studying the arts. Those who studied the arts four or more years scored 59 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math portions of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. –Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers. The College Board. Compiled my MENC. 1995

· The U.S. Department of Labor issued a report in 1991 urging schools to teach for the future workplace. The skills they recommend (working in teams, communication, self-esteem, creative thinking, imagination, and invention) are exactly those learned in school music and arts education programs.

· Parents are crucial in helping implement the National Standards for Arts Education by assessing the school’s arts education program and teacher qualification; evaluating the community’s cultural assets; and forming an arts education coalition. –What Parents Can Do. Music Educators National Conference and The National PTA

· Today’s music students are more self-motivated, interested in technology, and are better musicians than students two decades ago. – 1995 survey conducted by the Music Teachers National Association

· “Music, to me, was – is – representative of everything I like most in life. It’s beautiful and fun, but very rigorous. If you wanted to be good you had to work like crazy. It was a real relationship between effort and reward. My musical life experiences were just as important to me, in terms of forming my development, as my political experiences or my academic life.” -President Bill Clinton. From The Gifts of Music. Copyright 1994 by Music Educators National Conference.

· “I believe arts education in music, theater, dance and the visual arts is one of the most creative ways we have to find the gold that is buried just beneath the surface. They [children] have an enthusiasm for life, a spark of creativity and vivid imaginations that need training…training that prepares them to become confident young men and women.” -U.S. secretary of Education Richard W. Riley

· “…a vibrant arts community is critical to corporations decide where to locate, when people decide where to work.” -Megatrends & Megatrends 2000, John Naisbitt

· During hearings on the recommended Diploma Program, TMEA (Texas Music Teacher’s Association) continually testified that students who valued an experience in music also were high academic achievers. –Texas Music Educator

· A Rockefeller Foundation study stated that music majors have the highest rate of admittance to medical school, a whopping 66.7 percent.

· The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. –Grant Venerable. “The Paradox of the silicon Savior,” as reported in “The Case for Sequential Music Education in the Core Curriculum of the Public Schools.” The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum. New York. 1989

· For more benefits of music, music making, and music education visit the American Music Conference Online