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Osceola chosen for prekindergarten violin literacy pilot program
Ohanian Comment: The mission of Poinciana Academy of Fine Arts seems more than meritorious: to give children the "opportunity to truly expand their minds through an arts infused curriculum. Students in grades kindergarten through fifth will be exposed to all areas of the fine arts spectrum: music, visual art, dance, and drama. They will also be provided a challenging academic experience that encourages creative problem solving as well as academic and personal development."
I am all for music education. Every child should have the opportunity. But what's the rush? Why do pre-K children need to work on their attention spans? And why do officials see music only for its possible instrumental ends--higher test scores? I'd feel much better if the people installing this program said, "Let's do violin with these kids because it's a wonderful thing for them to do"--instead of making all sorts of claims about memory, literacy, and other things that go bump in the night.
Remember Howard Hill, the con man in "Music Man"
Well, ya got trouble, my friend
Right here, I say trouble right here in River City
Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones
Moral after school -- Our children's children gonna have
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...
In Florida, they
Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones
Paying attention
For longer and longer time
So they can score better
On those standardized tests.
Practical Question:With everybody predicting that Florida faces HUGE education budget shortfalls now that the federal stimulus funds have run out, where did they get the money for pre-kinder violins?
At the Sept. 7, 2010 final hearing on the School District budget, the Osceola School Board stated: The lack of funding throughout the School District of Osceola County. Florida (School District) for the operation of schools has become increasingly acute.
On Jan. 31, 2011 The Ledger quoted Florida state Commission Eric Smith to the effect that Florida faces a $3.6 billion shortfall and the possibility that state programs already cut to the bone will be cut even further.
by staff
The Florida Department of Education has selected the Osceola County School District to pilot an Early Childhood String Program, providing the funding that will provide string instruction to pre-kindergarten students.
The purpose of this project is to determine the effect that focused group instruction in violin will have on the development of kindergarten readiness skills in pre-kindergarten students in two Title I pre-kindergarten sites: Poinciana Academy for the Fine Arts and Chambers Park, an annex of Central Avenue Elementary School. A total of 72 students will receive violin instruction taught by a highly qualified strings specialist [emphasis added]
"I am extremely grateful to Dr. Eric Smith, commissioner of education, and the Florida Department of Education for selecting Osceola County for this outstanding pilot program and for providing the necessary funding," Superintendent Michael A. Grego said.
Four intact classes of 18 students per class will be included in this project. In eight small groups, nine students per group, students will receive instruction twice each week. Each session will be 20-25 minutes in length.
Students will be engaged in a literacy-based program directed toward the development of language, as well as pre-reading and kindergarten readiness skills. The curriculum, based on brain research and applied to prekindergarten string instruction, was developed by Judy Evans, Collier County. The program also is also designed to enhance the development of violin performance skills, attention span, focus, listening skills, fine motor skills, sound exploration and social skills.
"We have found that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year," said Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University and director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. "These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive benefit that is seen with musical training."
Trainor's own study involved young students who were provided string instruction. The children who were given the string instruction improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with non-musical abilities, such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ than did the children not taking string instruction.
This study, as well as the work done by Evans, suggests that musical training is having a positive effect on how the brain gets wired for general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention.
— Staff
Around Osceola
2010-01-26
http://aroundosceola.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8056&Itemid=62
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