Music Lessons May Boost Poor Kids' Brainpower, Study Suggests

Music Lessons May Boost Poor Kids' Brainpower, Study Suggests

by Linda Carrol (Today Contributor)

Article: click here

Each semester, the energy of the course content ends up connecting with current events and local happenings.  Whether it was last semester's visit of Dr. Cornel West to the border community, literally during the same week we were scheduled to begin reading the introduction of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, or the racial explosion of recent police shootings as we studied the history and impact of the drug war and its relationship to policing and a lock-up process gone bad.

With this semester's focus on creative expression in juvenile detention, I'd like for everyone to read an article recently published by USA Today, titled "Music Lessons May Boost Kids' Brainpower, Study Suggests".  From the onset of course instruction we read and discussed the Carnegie Hall music report posted here, and are learning about the adolescent brain through Scott Wier's experience Teaching Behind Bars.  

I hope this article helps you understand the present day momentum and importance of creative expression in not only juvenile detention (justice settings), but the community as well.  

Here is a quote from the article:

"Researchers from Northwestern University found that after two years of music lessons, the brains of kids from poor, gang-infested neighborhoods interpreted speech sounds more quickly and precisely, an improvement that might lead to better language and reading skills, according to the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.  

The new findings come as tightening budgets have led more and more schools in poorer districts to chop arts programs, including music instruction, as nonessential to kids’ educations.

Though earlier research had shown that music training seems to have a global impact on kids’ academic achievement, there was no proof that it actually affected kids’ brains."

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