Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Teaching with the Brain in Mind
testing is valuable; listening during a test would
cause neural competition by interfering with the
neural firing pattern.
A survey of studies suggest that music plays
a significant role in enhancing a wide range of academic
and social skills. For one, it activates procedural
(body) memory and therefore, is learning that
lasts (Dowling 1993). In addition, James Hanshumacher
(1980) reviewed 36 studies, of which 5
were published and the remaining were unpublished
dissertations. He concluded that arts education
facilitates language development, enhances
creativity, boosts reading readiness, helps social
development, assists general intellectual achievement,
and fosters positive attitudes toward school
(Hanshumacher 1980). After all, music is a language
that can enhance the abilities of children who
don’t excel in the expression of verbal thinking.
Does evidence support the value of singing?
Music researcher M. Kalmar found that music has
many positive school correlates. Between the two
groups, only the experimental group had better
abstract conceptual thinking, stronger motor development,
coordination, creativity, and verbal abilities.
Another study (Hurwitz, Wolff, Bortnick, and
Kokas 1975) concluded that the music groups
(trained only in folk songs) “exhibited significantly
higher reading scores than did the control group,
scoring in the 88th percentile versus the 72nd percentile.”
Singing is good stimulation for the brain,
“a means to promote both musical competence and
full development. . .” (Weinberger 1996).
Art Enrichment. How does art research hold
up? Art education has gotten a tremendous boost
from discoveries in neuroscience. The old paradigm
was that left-brain thinking was the home of
the necessary “higher-order” thinking skills, and
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right-brain activities were frills. That paradigm is
dead wrong. Current research tells us that much
learning is “both-brained.” Musicians usually
process melodies in their left hemispheres. PET
scans of problem solvers show activations in not
just the left frontal lobes but other areas used to
store music, art, and movement (Kearney 1996).
Many of our greatest scientific thinkers, like Einstein,
have talked about the integration of imagination
into scientific pursuit.
There has been worldwide success of the
neuropsychological art therapy model, or NAT
developed by Garner (1996; see also Parente and
Anderson-Parente 1991, McGraw 1989). The use
of art not just to draw but to teach thinking and
build emotive expressiveness and memory has
been a remarkable demonstration of the brain’s
plasticity. By learning and practicing art, the
human brain actually rewires itself to make more
and stronger connections. Researchers learned this
by using it as therapy for the brain damaged (Kolb
and Whishaw 1990). Jean Houston says that arts
stimulate body awareness, creativity, and sense of
self. In fact, she says, “The child without access to
arts is being systematically cut off from most of the
ways in which he can experience the world” (in
Williams 1977).
Policymakers and educators are often looking
for data to support the role of arts. In Columbus,
Ohio, the results were quite measurable. Talk to
principal James Gardell at Douglas Elementary.
This predominately arts-centered school has
achievement scores 20 points above the district
norms in 5 of 6 academic areas. Demand for their
program is strong; more than 100 children are on
the school’s “wait list.” Does the art emphasis make
a difference? “There’s a definite link,” says Gardell