Classical Music in the Classroom

A friend of mine, who formally taught fifth grade but is now homeschooling, was discussing with me the other day how powerful an effect classical music was in her classroom. She was amazed at how peaceful and calm her classroom was when she started out the day with classical music. Boys especially seemed influenced by it, and she noticed that they seemed to be better behaved and able to concentrate on the mornings she put it on. It got to the point where the children themselves would request the music, and parents started donating more CDs to add to her collection because their children kept telling them how much they liked it at school!

It turns out that she was definitely on to something. There have been many scientific experiments that proves that living organisms are most definitely influenced by the sounds in their environment. A group of plants exposed to classical music grew better than another group exposed to rock music; a similar experiment using mice actually had to be cut short, as the group exposed constantly to heavy rock music actually killed each other all off! However, in this same experiment, the speed at which the group of mice exposed to classical music ran through their maze actually increased by 300% over the control group, which had no music exposure at all.

In "Your Child's Brain", an article in Newsweek magazine, I found the following quote:

When children exercise cortical neurons by listening to classical music, they are also strengthening circuits used for mathematics. Music, says the US team, "excites the inherent brain patterns and enhances their use in complex reasoning tasks." Plato once said that "music is a more potent instrument than any other for education." Now scientists know why. Music, they believe, trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. (2/19/96)

Baroque music especially has been found to be beneficial, because its tempo, at approximately 60 beats per minute, has been found to help regulate the brain's rhythm and movement, and helps to improve impulse control as it balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Because it balances and uses the entire brain, researchers have found that increased levels of serotonin, anoradrenaline and cortisol are produced while listening to Baroque music, which in turn influences the child's stress levels, social feelings, self concept, and activity levels.

In other countries such as Japan, Hungary and the Netherlands, instruction in music and in other arts is required and has been given much more prominence in their curriculum than here in the States. Music especially is studied 2-5 days per week. The payoff? Math and science scores are near the top in the world!!

There is absolutely no downside to this, folks, and the research supports an even greater neurological benefit to playing music as compared to just listening to it. Music should be a significant part of every child's education and children should be exposed to it as equally as to the other academic disciplines. There is also support for starting children early in their music education as the effects are greater in the early years, and positive impact increases with each additional year.

This is incredible! I am definitely going to implement this more in my homeschool!