Hello everyone. After a crazy set of set backs in my personal life (one being the loss of this original article from a hard drive failure), I am attempting to retype the post from how I initially planned on presenting it. Should it come off a little more complicated or not flow as easily as the articles on here normally write for the site, I apologize in advance. Moving back to topic, there has been a lot of debate over the past few years over removing the arts from our public education. Sources such as Americans for the Arts and Center for Artistic Activism have been making stands for defending the arts for some time now but they are known for working with the public system. In my opinion and the opinion of many others, one of the greatest assets to saving the arts is making sure they thrive in public education. We as artists need to make sure that these programs are kept alive and thriving for the future of the arts. The benefits are not only beneficial for the artistic part of the mind, but also for the arithmetic portion. The benefits are also known to benefit students with special needs or a physical disability.
Learning to play an instrument at any level of education is also like learning a new language; having to not only understand it, but translate it with perfect diction and precise pronunciations can be a tall order. The thought process behind seeing the "dots" compared to the closest line of the staff is thought in our minds as if you are understanding "the" starts with the letter "t" and it is the 20th letter of the English alphabet. Understanding how a note with multiple flags eventually line up to equal a full measure is processed just like adding 1/16, 2/8 and 3/16 to equals 1/2. This is not even going into the process behind developing an artistic style, or following a periodic style such as making baroque music sound detached or It all relies on expanding the mind in several dimensions. This has led into research into the possibility of using music as a form of medical treatment for people who were either born with a physical or mental disability or have acquired one. There are pages upon pages of information into the field of music therapy that I wish I could explain to everyone (maybe one day!) but if this interests you then head to the American Music Therapy Association website and look into it. It ranges from helping students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder to develop emotional stability to assiting in building motor control. It is also able to help release emotions that may be left inside from complicated situations revolving around themselves that they may not be able to express otherwise.
It plays a key role in students who want to belong somewhere. It has been reported that artist of any kind are more likely to gain crucial vocal and communication skills from their art. The Atlantic reported about the benefits to using music as a stimulate for students with ASD who lack in communication skills. The article goes into details of technique called "regulation" or changing the tempo or even the feel of the music to make sure the student grows outside cues and repetition. This is merely scratching the surface of this field and it's implications but there is a pattern I'm attempting to create.
Drawing this article back towards a well rounded education, we should look towards research into SAT students. Research posted by Americans for the Arts in 2010 shows arts students scored 91.6 points higher on their SAT compared to non-arts related students between 1999 and 2009. The same group has publicized more information showing that studying an art for four or more years can increase scores by 100 points.
Before I leave this conversation to the comments section of this post, the Facebook page or the Twitter page let me leave you with these 11 facts about the arts as posted by Do Something .Org that I found interesting in my research. Next week will be the last of this series followed by a summary. There will be a surprised with this one, so stay tuned! Also for New Years Day, I will release a special post for those whom want to know the plans of the blog. I have a few announcements I am ready to publicize that I think will bring a new chapter to ASMTB.
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