The author perfectly illustrates how the long-term presence of a performing musical group results in boosting of academic performance across the curriculum. The key idea here is that the musicians are employed NOT just as a one-off entertainment event that pulls kids out of class and into a school assembly, etc. Rather, and this is the key difference, the musicians are involved with the teachers on a long term basis. They sit down with the teacher and plan how their musical activity and the music itself can be used to teach and connect with a wide variety of the school curriculue. For example, concept of patterning in mathematics can be very abstract and difficult to grasp for even the brightest mind. But, when the concept of patterning is illustrated in musical forms and rhythms, there is an instant connection. Likewise, social skills are hard to see as relevant when taught in isolation, but when students understand, see and hear the give and take and sharing/synergy that happens in a musical ensemble, not only in the rehearsal process but in the performance itself, they get it: social skills are the very tools of "life performance," just like musicianship is the basic tool of musical performance. There are hundreds of other equally powerful ways that a musical ensemble can deeply enrich a school program IF (and this is the big if) the teachers and musicians share the responsibility and opportunity to bring their music to the service of all learning, and if the musicians and teachers are willing to be involved in the project on a long-term basis. (At least a full school year, if not two or three.)
I need to read this book again and again. Perhaps then, I will find the courage to try some of these ideas in his own classroom, in partnership with other musicians and teachers.
Five stars out of five.
