Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 2002/09

From: Audrey Travis <vsofan@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Music/Academics studies?
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 11:34:44 -0400

"Forest E. Aten Jr." wrote:
>
> Aimee,
>
> "statistically proven to improve academic scores"
>
> Many studies come to this claim by association. I have yet to see a top
> notch study that proves this assumption. From my observations (30 years of
> teaching music), this "improve academic scores" claim is not the case. As a
> matter of fact, the kids grades, in the Richardson, Texas, ISD, suffer
> dramatically during the fall marching season. My oldest daughter is a fine
> young musician and when she was in high school band the marching time
> commitment was so out of control...she quit....as did 90 of her peers during
> her sophomore year. These kids were the best and brightest on the
> campus....and the best and brightest in the band program. All lost to the
> excess. I should say....the kids lost out to the excess. I observed more
> indoctrination that education in the RISD. These kids were smart and would
> not fall victim as they knew the difference between a very abusive kind of
> indoctrination vs. education.
>
>It seems imperative to find out what kind of band programs were used in
the research. May I also point out that here in Canada, and I think
also in Europe, there are virtually no marching bands. In British
Columbia, all our band programs are concert and/or jazz bands. I don't
think you can base your gut feeling conclusions on the idea that
everyone, everywhere has marching band experience, good or bad.
Marching is not a universal part of band programs and we do studies in
Music Education here in Canada too. Not only that, but someone in the
last few days sent in a link to similar research done in Norway. I
don't think they have very many marching bands there.If U.S. tests were
done which did include students in marching bands and still came to
thesame conclusion, then your assumptions are incorrect.

So a distinction needs to be made between "music improves other academic
scores" (which may/may not be true) and "time abuse" in marching
programs. Just because time may be abused abused does not mean academic
scores would not be higher. Have you considered the possibility that,
specifically related to marching bands, scores might still be higher in
spite of the time abuse? If that were the case, wouldn't that say a
great deal about the immense value of music education? (At this point,
statisticians are welcome to jump all over me...). The fact that your
oldest daughters and her peers opted out of an abusive program does
indeed show their intelligence and their unwillingness to use time in
that way, but it doesn't disprove the "academic" claim.

Cheers to all,

Audrey

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