Ebook: Rhythms of Learning: Creative Tools for Developing Lifelong Skills

It has long been recognized that there is a meaningful connection between artistic abilities and academic abilities, notable in the relationship between musical and mathematical/scientific abilities. In a recent worldwide study on the science achievements of fourteen-year-olds, the top three countries include music as an integral part of the curriculum from kindergarten through high school. Hungary, which has been implementing an intensive program in music education since the fifties, ranks first. Japan is second, and the Netherlands is third. (The United States ranks fourteenth out of the seventeen countries in the study.) In “Silicon Valley,” California, it has been reported that the top engineers and technical designers are nearly all practicing musicians.

While we do not yet fully understand why or how this relationship between musical and mathematical/scientific ability works, we do know that schools that devote a significant part of every school day to the arts, taught both as separate subjects and integrated throughout the curriculum, are producing the highest academic achievement in the United States today. (Davidson in Augusta, Georgia, is first in the nation, and Ashley River Elementary in Charleston, North Carolina, is second.) Even more important, their students are especially motivated, creative, and independent learners and thinkers who experience learning through mind, body, and spirit.

Until the publication of this book, it has been somewhat easier for many teachers to learn to teach various subjects through the graphic and dramatic arts than it has been to teach through music and dance. Yet these “rhythms of learning,” in which the body itself becomes the instrument and the art form, can enhance and accelerate learning for all students. In many cases, music makes it possible to master difficult, abstract concepts faster, more easily, and with greater retention.