The power of music
A new documentary explains how learning an instrument enhances education, writes Seanna Cronin
AS A nation, it seems we’ve forgotten the power of music when it comes to children and their schooling.
Despite the proven benefits of music education, most schools don’t have the resources for a music program in their curriculum and 63% of primary schools in Australia offer no classroom music.
But a new art music program hopes to change that.
The three-part documentary series Don’t Stop The Music, part of the ABC’s Aus Music Month, follows the journey of a primary school from an underprivileged area of Perth embarking on a music program, and the transformative effects it has on the students, teachers and families involved.
Featured in the series is Dr Anita Collins, an award-winning educator, researcher and writer in the field of brain development and music learning.
“We’ve had 25 years of degradation of where music sits in a child’s development,” she tells The Guide.
“It’s not just the kids. Their parents haven’t had a strong, ongoing musical education so they don’t know how good it is.”
This program isn’t about music as a career or discovering the next classical wunderkind. It’s about using music to develop and enhance learning.
“Music learning is a fundamental part of learning languages. It develops all the neurological paths we need,” Dr Collins said.
“It develops different parts of the brain at different times.
“We know that from ages zero to seven music is absolutely central to kids learning how to speak and read language. Then from seven to 14 it develops executive functions like paying attention and social skills.
“Then after that it’s about good decision making in adolescence. Music is beneficial all the way through childhood and into adulthood. There’s not a bad time to start a musical instrument.”
Cameras follows a group of Year 4 students at Challis Primary School in Armadale as they are given their first-ever instruments.
“The first one we see straight away is a new confidence and joy,” she said.
“Then the initial excitement wears off and the kids go ‘this is hard work’. That’s absolutely the time to keep them going. If we let them stop when it becomes hard then they’re going to think they can just leave things when they get hard.”
The goal of the program is for the students to perform in an end-of-term concert at the
Perth Concert Hall.
Australian singer Guy Sebastian also came on board to help mentor the students and their music teacher ahead of the big night.
The results of the program speak for themselves. There was an immediate drop in truancy and recent Naplan scores show many students have risen to the mean or above in just one year.
“It’s quite an extraordinary change,” she says. “The community has come to understand the power of it. The program’s still going and I don’t think it will stop.
It’s transformed the school.”