If you’re a parent with children in school, you’ve likely heard about something called “21^st Century Skills”. It’s one of those buzzwords that are created as education is revamped and redirected.  (I remember being part of the “New Math” experiment in Elementary School.)

Really, the core subjects our children need to learn hasn’t changed. But our world has changed, and we need to help our kids to be ready to meet these different challenges. Math competency is still vital for an engineering job, but employers want creativity, teamwork, critical thinking skills, accountability and adaptability. They want their employees to be self-directed and have the ability to communicate well. (Be that email, conference call, written reports or in person.)

Here’s a brief excerpt from The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills:

Learning Skills: “To cope with the demands of the 21st century,” the report states, “students need to know more than core subjects. They need to know how to use their knowledge and skills-by thinking critically, applying knowledge to new situations, analyzing information, comprehending new ideas, communicating, collaborating, solving problems, and making decisions.”

I recently provided commentary during a podcast with Michael Butera, the Executive Director of MENC (Music Educator’s National Conference) about this subject.

I’ll come right to the main point: Music provides students the skills they need to not only succeed in school, but in life. Back to this in a moment.

No one denies that music holds a great attraction for us as human beings. I look to my own 11 year old, who (if I didn’t occasionally pull them out to speak to him) I fear his ear buds would grow permanently attached.

Music is a life-long endeavor. How many times did you hear someone say to their math teacher, “But when in real life am I ever going to need to calculate the collision point of two trains, one going 120 mph and the other 27 mph?” But a child who plays piano will often be found 25 years later on the floor with their own children singing and making music.

Many of you have told me that your children are geniuses. (I kid you not. I hear it all the time.) And that may be so. But there are many children who don’t burst onto the school scene shining brilliantly and there are certainly many who struggle.

But what I love about music is that everyone can participate. Students who don’t experience academic success in the classroom can often experience success in the music. Maybe for the first time they can flourish and grow.

When a child gains confidence with their music success, they take that confidence (along with the academic and critical thinking and teamwork and social skills (remember the list above?) they learned from music into all sorts of other areas of their life. Success breeds success. And research already has proven those students who are involved in music do better at math, reading, and even sports, and are less likely to drop out of school.

For you parents of genius children (I’m not making fun of you, since I have genius children of my own…), here’s some things you may want to know:

The majority of people who go into medical school are musicians. The same is true in general for students who pursue higher education. The National GPA is also higher for students who are involved in music.

Back to the main point. Music provides students the skills they need to not only succeed in school, but in life. We all want to prepare our kids to be happy, independent, successful grownups. It doesn’t matter if they become lawyers or farmers. In today’s world, the skills they need are universal. Music is a joyous way to help them reach their full potential.

Here’s the podcast in it’s entirety.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who has always wanted to learn to play the cello, and has decided that it’s never too late to teach an old Euphonium player new tricks, so she’s going to start this fall.

The following is from an interesting article I read in ScienceDaily:

Researchers have discovered that infants respond to the rhythm and tempo of music and find it more engaging than speech.

The findings, based on the study of infants aged between five months and two years old, suggest that babies may be born with a predisposition to move rhythmically in response to music.

The research was conducted by Dr Marcel Zentner, from the University of York’s Department of Psychology, and Dr Tuomas Eerola, from the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyvaskyla.

Dr Zentner said: “Our research suggests that it is the beat rather than other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the response in infants. We also found that the better the children were able to synchronize their movements with the music the more they smiled.”

But, if you’ve come to a Studio3Music Kindermusik class, you already know that, and didn’t need scientific research to tell you so.

What I love about this research is that it enforces what we’ve learned about the brain. In the first 7 years of life, the brain’s main job is to organize itself. It does this through sensory integration. Sensory integration is the process of sorting, ordering and organizing sensory input (sounds, tastes, touch, visual input, smells, the sense of gravity and movement, and where the body is in space) so that the brain produces useful body responses, useful perceptions, and emotions.

When sensory integration is happening as it should, learning is also easy, and children naturally then seek to learn more complicated tasks. There is an inner drive in children to develop sensory integration. Remember how the babies in the research study smiled the more they could synchronize their movements to the music?

They experienced an “adaptive response”, which is a purposeful, goal-directed response to a sensory experience. The sensory input from his eyes, muscles, joints and vestibular system all are integrated and organized in his brain; therefore, he can make his body move in time to the music. And that ability to do so is very satisfying. So the baby smiles.

I think the key is this: Music helps organize the brain. When the body and all of the senses work together as a whole, adaptation and learning are easy for the brain. Most of our learning must occur first through the integration of our sensory systems. This provides the groundwork for later cognitive functions.

But, you already knew that, whether in your head or in your heart. And so does your little one. And that’s one of the reasons you come to class every week. Because music leads to learning, and learning leads to great satisfaction. What better gift can you give your children?

­-posted by Miss Analiisa, who loves to watch the babies wiggle in their grownups arms as they head toward the studio, cause they can’t get to Kindermusik fast enough, or the older ones running down the sidewalk towards the door, calling their teacher’s name!

Just like many of you, I am now beginning to reflect on this year in Kindermusik. I am reflecting on what kind of person and teacher I was before the year started, and I am reflecting on what kind of person and teacher I am now. A Chinese proverb comes to mind: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”

What I have come to love about Kindermusik is that now, at the end of the year, as I look into your faces and I look into the faces of your children, I know deep down that what you all take with you as you continue on is something that you’ll never forget. It comes from the foundation of how we teach: through play. Every day we get to play with our children, and in the classroom, I know that as a teacher, it is my goal to help you as caregivers and teachers of your children, to show you what you already do so well, and build on it even more. Take for example:

-          A richer vocabulary
-          Better verbalization
-          Higher language level
-          Better problem-solving strategies
-          More curiosity
-          Better peer cooperation
-          Higher mathematics skills
-          Empathy
-          Prediction of other’s preferences and desires
-          Control of impulsive actions
-          Increased motor control

These are all examples of skills we want our children to learn so they can have everything they need to be happy and healthy. Now pick two or three of these things. Think of an example from this past year in Kindermusik where you saw these skills emerge while you were playing and singing and dancing with the children. Reflect on what happened, what you were doing, what kind of play it was, what the children said, what you said, where you were, etc. What did you notice? What do you notice now that you didn’t notice then? Sometimes when we play with children or see children playing together, we don’t always make the connection that their play is helping them learn important skills, but it happens every day.

Learning happens in many different forms. When we get older, there is more time spent on formal and structured learning. We sit down in a desk, we learn from books, and lectures, and so on. However, to truly learn and absorb a concept, there must be structure and chaos. Everything that we learn during structured parts of our day is processed and absorbed into our long-term memory during the unstructured and more chaotic times. We see this every day. A dance with specific steps to follow on the beat is an example of structured learning. Open music play during a steady beat is an example of a more free and open learning. Both are equally essential for learning experiences to happen.

This is why play is so essential to learning and is the foundation of everything we teach. But I am hardly the first to think so. In the 1970s, Israeli psychologist Sara Smilansky conducted research on the role of dramatic and sociodramatic play (dramatic play with others) in cognitive and socio-emotional development. These long-term studies were among the first of many that link children’s ability to engage in dramatic and sociodramatic play to their later academic success.

For example, I was not alive during the Civil War. I know, big surprise. But I am a huge history buff. I can vividly recall most everything I learned in a history or literature class. Problem solving in schools requires a great deal of make-believe. We have to imagine conceptual constructs all the time. Imagining a story and writing it down, solving arithmetic problems, finding a variable in calculus, determining what will come next are all things that require an imagination and a sense of make-believe.

There are many things in education we learn about that we never directly experience, like my anecdote about the Civil War.  Having this ability to make these constructs and imagine these concepts is a learned skill. It emerges in play. That is why children with a strong foundation in play so very clearly have the skills they need to be successful in their education, and can confidently make their own choices.

As I look back over the year, I think about everything we have learned. Each concept in we address in class, all the songs we’ve learned and skills we’ve seen our children develop, and I see that at the heart of all of it, is play. Education should always be this fun I think. In my book, school should never be boring, and play should always be at the heart of everything we do with our children.

-posted by Teacher Aaron, who leaves you with a quote from Ignacio Estrada: “If a child cannot learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

Did you know there was a link between your child’s Kindermusik experience and his potential ability to read a map? It’s true….Though spatial awareness is a skill that usually comes naturally for most children, it is certainly a skill that parents can do much to promote. Using Kindermusik to encourage the development of spatial awareness is a natural choice.

Spatial awareness can be defined as: an awareness of the body in space, and the child’s relationship to the objects in the space. This can include spatial orientation, which is the skill that allows them to understand and comply with simple requests such as: “line up at the door” or “sit in a circle.”

Doing the Hokey Pokey in Kenya!

Spatial awareness is also linguistic. The understanding of the positional words people use to define themselves in space is essential to spatial awareness. “I am underneath the bridge….I am behind the tree.” You get the picture.

Next time you are in your Kindermusik class, check out the movement chart on the wall and notice how many of the words are directional or relational. Hoop play is one of the many activities in Kindermusik designed to promote spatial awareness…I am in the hoop, outside the hoop, beside the hoop, in front of the hoop. Another well-loved favorite is the “Hokey-Pokey” …“you put your right arm in, you take your right arm out, you put your right arm in, and you shake it all about…”

Our Time’s “Zoom-E-Oh” which demonstrates up/down, high/low, in/out, away/together, etc. Songs like these and activities like hoop play are allowing your child to learn to organize the available space in relation to themselves and in relationship to objects and other individuals.

In addition to spatial awareness, they are learning things like body parts, rhythm patterns, and a sense of direction. Spatial concepts learned through movement and exploration simultaneously develop muscle strength, coordination, self-confidence, and thinking skills. Spatial awareness helps you distinguish between words on this page and see the letters in correct relation to each other.

Which brings us to the initial question: what is the link between your child’s Kindermusik experience and his ability to read a map? Studies show that the development of spatial orientation leads to increased understanding of location and direction and even eventually the ability to understand and read a map – the point being that spatial awareness or a lack thereof has a direct impact on everyday skills that make a practical difference in our ability to navigate through life.

This same ability applies to reading and writing music on the staff, swinging a golf club, lobbing a tennis ball over the net, heading a soccer ball into the goal, or sending a baseball over the fence.

So…what if the Hokey-Pokey is what it’s all about? Well….in some respects, it is!

­-posted by Studio3Music, with thanks to contributor Theresa Case, our friend and Kindermusik Educator from Greenville, SC.

I was listening to an interesting podcast a couple of nights ago. It was so thought-provoking that I couldn’t fall asleep afterwards. The question discussed was: “Are we raising a nation of wimps?”

By this, the commentators proposed that children are not learning the coping skills which lead to independence.  Their childhood is nice and clean and safe, but they are psychologically fragile later on when they leave for college.

Does a sanitized childhood turn a kid into a wimp?
It’s a scientific fact that if you are not exposed to enough “adversity” in the form of germs, your body doesn’t develop immunities. Is this a metaphor for what happens psychologically? The commentators proposed the idea that adversity enables our children able to meet the normal challenges of life as they grow up.

For instance, the crime rate is actually lower than when we were young, but parents these days are hyper-aware of all the potential “bad” things that can happen to their children. And that perhaps we unnecessarily “over-protect” our children because if something “bad” does happen to a child, parents are blamed for it. (If you hadn’t let her go rock climbing, she wouldn’t have broken her arm. Or worse, if you hadn’t allowed him to walk alone to school, he wouldn’t have been abducted.)

Are my own fears holding me back from doing what is best for my child’s development into independence?
Like every parent, I worry. (Will it hurt them, scare them, be too hard, cause them to fail?) Especially so when I became a parent for the first time. I think my oldest Nathan is now far less self-sufficient than his siblings because I was there most every moment, doing it for him, solving the problems, finding the solutions, mediating the play dates.

But my job as a parent is to teach my children to take smart risks. How to decide what is a good risk. What makes a poor risk. Train them about what should be avoided altogether. Risk management – yes. Risk elimination – no.

Of course, the level of risk is dependent on your child’s maturity, temperament, personality, strengths and weaknesses. Risks should be different for every child. You need to know your child in order to train them well.

The nitty-gritty practical.
So how does this idea of allowing adversity in the form of good risks play out? Here are some ideas:

Let your children make mistakes. Have them to fix the mistakes themselves. Even if it takes several attempts to do so. They’ll learn far more than if you do it for them. Even a toddler can clean up something they’ve spilled. Even if it is NOT the way you’d do it. (Are you gritting your teeth yet? I know I am!)

For school-aged children, allow them organize their own time. Do they really need you to decide if they should empty the dishwasher, have a snack or do their homework first? (Of course, you’ve already taught them what the consequences are for not doing chores or homework. Children need to learn to manage their tasks and time, and this is a good way to help them become more independent. Cause seriously, eventually someone who didn’t birth them and love them unconditionally will be their boss!)

Allow your children to play freely unmonitored with other children without the grownups intervening. The kids will work out the problems! (I don’t mean never check on them. But we adults often step into the middle of conflict far too soon.)

Encourage them to try new things. For one child, that may be finally raising her hand in class. For another, learning to dress himself, even if it is a struggle to work those little hands and legs. (And yes, it’s faster and easier if you put the clothes on, and they’ll match and not be on backwards. But don’t lose sight of the goal – independence. Help them get there one step at a time. Just don’t do the steps for them!)

Doing these things actually fosters brain development in the part of the brain where “executive functioning” occurs. This is the portion of the brain (the pre-frontal cortex for you brain anatomy lovers out there) where planning and decision making occur.

Recently, I was on the phone for nearly an hour with the HP customer service department located in some third world country (very annoying, but another blog!) when my 11 year old Nathan kept interrupting and wanting me to cut him some watermelon. I kept shooing him away. Funnily enough, when I got off the phone, I discovered that he had cut his own watermelon. It was a hack job, but that really didn’t matter. He had faced adversity, and solved his own problem. I never have to slice watermelon for him again. But I had trained him to use a knife previously – risk management. Risk elimination – no. He could have cut himself. But he used a steak knife. He knows better than to use a butcher knife.

If you’d like to listen to the podcast, you can find it on BamRadio Network.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who loves this quote from Andre Malraux: “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.”

Last time I explained the characteristics you can expect in your child of age 18 months to 2 ½ as they move through the cycles of equilibrium and disequilibrium. Today, I’m covering ages 3 to 5 years.

Age 3:  “Cooperate.” At age 3, cooperating is the name of the game.  Children love to share.  They have comfortable relationships for the most part.  The have become secure physically and that overflows into an emotional sense of control and well being.

Age 3 ½:  “Insecurity.” While the 3 year old enjoyed physical security, the 3 ½ year old now enters a stage where she stumbles and falls more. But fears and a sense of insecurity now contribute to the cause.  She can have a trembling hand when playing blocks as she tries to put the one perfectly on top.  She tries so hard at new activities that she has lost some of the devil-may-care freedom that often gives beginner’s luck.  She is less certain in her actions.  In language, the 3 ½ year old may have a tendency to stutter.  She is messier as she eats.  Dressing her may be more difficult as she wants more control, but is in an awkward stage and resents the help she needs.  Her chief battles are waged with mom or dad if he is the primary caregiver.

Age 4: “Wild & Wonderful.” The Gesell Institute characterizes the 4 year old as “out-of bounds.”  They have a strong emerging sense of self and are delighted about it.  They tend to be secure and boast and brag freely about their accomplishments.

Age 4 ½ : As four year olds are already characterized as “out of bounds,” the disequilibrium in this stage presents primarily as a greater degree of the same.  When they get angry, they are often “out-of-bounds” in their expressions.  They hit or kick.  When emotional, they cry loudly.  They feel free to make up what they don’t know, so lying is common at this age.

Age 5:  “Peaceful.” At 5 the child is quietly consolidating new skills.  He attempts only what he knows he can achieve.  No longer prone to pushing out the boundaries like the 4-year-old, the five-year-old is interested in sorting through and examining his new collection of skills, abilities and perception, much like a child quietly sorts his favorite collection of shells or marbles.  The five-year-old is inwardly oriented, often content and calm compared to other stages. And he loves to talk, thereby further integrating his experiences.  While his behavior is relatively quieter than other stages, his thoughts are not.  At this age, his interest in being read to is at its peak.  He also loves to hear adults tell him true stories.  Adults often find 5-year-olds delightful to be around.

Age 5 ½:  “Selfish.” All good things must come to and end. The 5 ½ year old believes she should be the center of the world.  She moves between being hesitant, dawdling and indecisive to over demanding, explosive and tense. “When she doesn’t have the courage to defy you outright, she dawdles—which amount to much the same thing.”  Tension and restlessness describe their physical state.  She has trouble sitting still.

All children move through the stages of development at an inexact pace.  However, the research shows that generally, all children go through the stages in six month cycles.  The principle is that one stage is established (equilibrium,) and then it must break up (disequilibrium) so the child can reach a higher, more stable stage of equilibrium.  Interestingly, researchers postulate that we all continue to go through cycles of equilibrium and disequilibrium but to a lesser degree as we continue to grown and learn as adults.

The good news is that whatever stage you’re experiencing, six months of patience and their behavior will likely change! If you understand the cyclical nature of child development, the craziness that sometimes characterizes life with preschoolers can suddenly have a rhythm that makes sense.  As a parent, I’m all for that.

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who distinctly remembers being in a state of disequilibrium the first few years of homeschooling her children.