Music Education Statistics and Information Music Major are the most likely group of college grads to be admitted to medical school. Lewis Thomas, Case for Music in the Schools, Phi Delta Kappa, 1994 High school music students have been shown to hold higher grade point averages(GPA) than non- musicians in the same school. National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 In Rhode Island, researches studied eight public school first-grade classes. Half of the classes became "test arts" groups, receiving ongoing music and visual arts training. In Kindergarten, this group had lagged behind in scholastic performance. After seven months, the students were given a standardized test. The "test arts" group had caught up to their fellow students in reading and surpasses their classmates in math by 22 percent. In the second year of the project, the arts students widened this margin even further. Students were also evaluated on attitude and behavior. Classroom teachers noted improvement in these areas also. Nature, May 23, 1996 During moments of musical euphoria, blood travels through the brain to areas where other stimuli can produce feelings of contentment and joy-and travels away from brain cell areas associated with depression and fear. Dr. Frederick Tims, reported in AMC Music News, June 2, 1999 Students of lower socioeconomic status who took music lessons in grades 8-12 increased their math scores significantly as compared to non-music students. But just as important, reading, history, geography and even social skills soared by 40%. Gardiner, Fox, Jeffrey and Knowles, Nature, May 23, 1996 Children given piano lessons significantly improved in their spatial-temporal IQ scores (important for some types of mathematical reasoning) compared to children who received computer lessons, casual singing or no lessons. Rauscher, Shaw, Levine, Wright, Dennis, and Newcomb, Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children's spatial temporal reasoning. 1997 A study of 237 second-grade children involved with both piano keyboard training and innovative math software scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than students only using the math software. Graziano, Peterson and Shaw, Neurological Research 21, March 1999 When a child learns by experience that music forges direct links between self and world, self-expression becomes more fluent; the music helps interpret "who I am." Growing up Complete, the report of the National Commission on Music Education, 1990 |