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Music leads to learning
Filed under: Work Life, Day Care & Education, That's Entertainment
Mathematics and music have long been linked -- Pythagoras may have been the first to study the relationship between the two, way back when. Michael Bitz, a professor at Columbia University, has found a new way to put music to work in the education world. His program, the Youth Music Exchange, has kids writing and recording music, producing albums, and marketing CD's.Having produced an album myself, I know there is a lot involved. Designing the packaging -- cover art, liner notes, layout -- requires a lot of different skills and a lot of work. Even without the whole writing music part, putting together an album involves English, art, math, and computer skills. Then there are the legal aspects -- reading contracts, understanding intellectual property rights and so on. My head hurts just thinking about it.
Bitz's program was recently chosen to receive a fellowship from the Mind Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to "empowering education entrepreneurs to develop or expand transformative education initiatives", and will be expanding into Indianapolis schools with the grant. One of the advantages of Bitz's program is that it is relatively inexpensive to implement -- the program costs about $2,500 to get started.
Before the students can begin packaging a CD, they have to write and record the music, of course. This involves putting the knowledge gained in more traditional classes to work. "We were writing the songs, and we did similes, metaphors and personification," noted thirteen-year-old Madelyne Giron.
Younger kids write about their heroes and holidays while the kids in middle school tackle more difficult topics, such as love and crime. This has got to be a fantastic experience for the kids and today's technology makes it an affordable possibility. And, on top of all the learning that goes on, we might just find us the next Charlotte Church or Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-02-2008 @ 11:21AM
LS said...What an awesome-sounding program! You can bet that I'm going to be doing further research, with an eye toward encouraging my son's school to do something like this. Even if they don't have access to a recording studio (and I'm pretty sure we don't have one nearby, being in the middle of an Iowa cornfield...), the kids could write and produce their own choir program or play. Write all the music, all the scenes, etc.
Kids learn so much more when the atmosphere is fun. There's no reason why we have to stick with the same-old, same-old "sit in a desk and be lectured to" style of learning that is so prevalent in our schools. I learn better hands-on, why shouldn't the kids?
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