UNISON - WA ACDA's Online Newsletter
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Global Challenges Require Skills Developed Through Music
Lori Wiest, President of Washington-American Choral Directors Association
O
perating in the current financial environment in our country, we recognize that administrators and school boards must consider options when determining how to reduce costs. But why is it that the arts tend to be the first area considered for reduction and removal from the curriculum in budget cuts? As a musician, university music educator, administrator, and appreciator of the fine and performing arts, I cannot imagine a more devastating loss for our children and societal future than the choice to cut music in the schools. Can we really afford to cut the music education curriculum when music and its allied partners in the fine and performing arts are fundamental to the development of the intellectual growth of our children, the dedication, discipline, and work ethic of our future employees, the creative and innovative thinking that will create impact in our world, the expressive and communicative skills necessary to build community and identity, and cultural empathy and awareness in a global society?
The positive impact of music goes far beyond what some think can be gained from an elective or extracurricular course. It is scientifically proven that, despite socioeconomic status, music is essential in the growth and development of cognitive and spatial-temporal reasoning in children, skills necessary for learning mathematics and science. This supports the ability to increase learning in other subjects and develop inherent values and intelligence.
Development of independent thinkers and problem solvers with the ability to conceptualize a larger vision while seeing to the nuance of details and thinking outside the box in a creative and innovative manner are key factors of a music curriculum and primary characteristics found in the development of a number of our brightest and most successful entrepreneurs and global leaders. Musical performers learn to make choices and take educated risks, incorporating their knowledge, musical skills, and emotions in their pursuit of excellence and achievement. Music education is an essential element in developing a culturally literate society that can think on various levels, consider multiple choices based on knowledge and understanding, and articulate ideas and feelings.
Music builds community, citizenship, and identity, establishing a sense of cultural understanding and awareness. In the music curriculum, not only do students study cultures, but they also embody the life and energy of that culture through musical creation and recreation of its music in performance, enhanced by the increased availability of multi-cultural music that we are able to study and perform in our music classrooms. While individual lessons and opportunities for personal enrichment through music may exist outside the established curriculum, the team approach enables students to work together towards a common goal, be supportive of each other, and learn to work with fellow students from differing cultures, backgrounds, and socioeconomic environments in a confident and creative manner. These opportunities enable the development of a skill that employers are demanding of future employees: the ability to work successfully alongside others from a diverse cultural and socioeconomic background.
Music enhances the development of the “whole child.” Music enriches a person’s life through experience and memory in identifying images, stories, history, culture, language, art, theater, movies, dance, folklore, and more. It improves the abilities of trust and cooperation, empathy, awareness, patience, listening, communicating and other social skills. From participating in music ensembles we gain perspective, knowledge and understanding of the evolution our world and the people in it, personal connection to history and culture through the study of composers and their music, and appreciation for talent and the sacrifices one makes for nurturing and furthering its growth.
Future careers in our global society will require skills that are largely gained from what is learned and practiced through a music education curriculum. Music equips people to be better team players in their careers, to possess creative and more disciplined problem-solving skills, and to establish a greater sense of organization and management of their time and tasks. Self-knowledge, self-expression, and deep-rooted passion of conviction are core requirements of a musician who is constantly training the brain and coordination of the body to reach the highest level of achievement. These characteristics developed through music are not isolated in their application but carry over into everything else he/she pursues.
Music itself is a life skill that can be more fully developed throughout one’s educational and professional career but its initial introduction and foundational skills must be instilled early in life through a consistent curriculum. It should be available to all students at all levels of learning throughout life. Removing it from a school curriculum, particularly at an important junction in a student’s life, is not a sound educational decision.
In essence, music is an efficient use of a school’s budget and an invaluable investment in producing a culture of global thinkers, innovators, problem-solvers, independent minds who are highly skilled to successfully work as a member of a team, and expressive, communicative adults who appreciate and provide the world with artistic and creative environments. In a changing world with new challenges, expectations, and requirements, we cannot afford to drop music education from our curriculum. Please provide our students the tools learned through a strong and energetic music education program in our schools to facilitate the development of these skills in preparing them for successfully competing in a world full of challenges.
by Lori Wiest, President-Elect, WA ACDA
Washington ACDA has developed a new opportunity to offer our members as we strive in our mission to promote excellence in choral music through performance, composition, publication, research, and teaching.
Through a competitive application process made available to our Washington ACDA membership, a limited resource of seed money may be requested toassist a project which serves the art of choral music within the state of Washington.
The projects for which this funding may be requested
must be in line with the purposes of ACDA.
To submit a Request for Funds, you must be a member of ACDA and the event must serve a projected area of choral constituents in the state of Washington. Requests for projects serving a limited audience, such as a single school, will not meet the purpose of this fund.
On the request form, concisely provide the nature of the request, the purpose, significant need, and objectives to be delivered for this proposal and include other requested information regarding advertising/marketing, geographic location and what area of the state will be included in the project, future continuation of the project or impact, and how this proposal meets the mission of WA ACDA.
A well thought out proposal benefits both the organization proposing and presenting the event as well as those who are considering the project for funding. Proposal requests for funds up to $500 will be considered.
Deadline for submitting the request for a fall project must be received by June 15 with notification of funding or denial by August 1.
For spring projects, the application must be received by September 15 with notification of funding or denial by October 30.
WA ACDA reserves the right to fund, partially fund, and/or deny any submitted request. Please review the guidelines and requirements for complete information.
Consider this application opportunity to request funding for a choral music project that you would like to develop.