![]() Understandings of cognitive development and brain plasticity, as Olive Emil-Wetter, Fritz Koerner and Adrian Schwaninger note in ‘Does musical training improve school performance?’ reveal that students who learn a musical instrument and have a continuous and active participation with music often demonstrate enhanced academic outcomes. Music, cognitive development and brain plasticity What could I learn, I wondered, from the co-curricular music program that I could use in the regular classroom? I knew that many of our students who began instruments in the classroom program were motivated to persist through the co-curricular band and string ensembles. Were they born with perseverance, flexible thinking and a desire for accuracy? Were they successful only because they had natural talent? Was there a correlation between mastery in a musical field and mastery in the academic domain, and if so, why? ‘Not to continue is like running half a race and then stopping.’Īs a teacher, I’ve always been curious about the development of attitudes for learning that many successful music students demonstrate. I was pleased with their enthusiasm, and asked them what motivated them still to want to practise. ![]() These were not advanced clarinettists in the senior school, but students in the last year of primary school, near the end of two-year program of class instrumental instruction and after end-of-term class assessment had taken place. ![]() Three students found me one morning tea and asked if they could use the classroom to practise their clarinets. This is an edited version of an article that was originally published in the May 2011 print edition of Teacher.
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