Music can be path to language and math

[Jahness]

Music can be path to language and math

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD,
AP Education Writer


The challenge was to come up with an idea that can transform public education, particularly in poor communities. The winner: an educator with a passion for making school fun.

Michael Bitz won a national competition with his idea for helping students learn academic subjects while creating their own record labels.

Now, he'll try to bring that idea to schools across the country as the first recipient of a fellowship awarded this week through the Mind Trust, an Indianapolis nonprofit. The group's stated goal is to encourage entrepreneurial solutions to problems in U.S. schools.

An adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, the 36-year-old Bitz previously founded the Comic Book Project, a popular program in which kids work on reading and writing by creating comic books.

He already is testing his new idea in New York City after-school programs. The kids write songs, create digital tracks, design cover art and market their CDs.

Elementary schoolers have recorded tracks about civil rights heroes and favorite holidays, while middle schoolers have rapped about edgier subjects like weapons, crime, and love.

Through the fellowship, worth about $250,000, Bitz hopes to put the program in place during the school day in Indianapolis schools.

That can be a challenge in many districts, where an intense focus is often placed on core academic subjects tested under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Such a focus can come at the expense of other school activities.

Bitz says his program might boost reading and math scores. For example, he said the children who work on the CDs build math skills by coming up with marketing and business plans.

"I don't think it's so explicit as to be like 'Oh by the way, you just learned something about the quadratic equation.' But it's built into the process of what the children are supposed to be doing," he said.

Madelyne Giron, 13, says she was surprised one day to realize that the fun she was having in the music program had a lot in common with the traditional work she was doing in her English class.

"We were writing the songs, and we did similes, metaphors and personification," she said.

The program also seems to have social benefits.

Madelyne's friend Katherine Saldana said making CDs got kids in the after-school program to get along. "In the beginning we used to have a lot of conflicts," she said. "Since the program began, we came more together."

Andre Joyles, who coordinates the program at a Queens high school, says it also can help with the tough task of building teen confidence.

He noted one sophomore was painfully shy at the start of the year but secretly loved writing poetry. Through the program, she began putting her words to music and sharing the effort with her peers. "She never really used to express herself," Joyles said. "She's open with us now."

A goal of the Mind Trust fellowship is to create programs that are inexpensive, so that they can easily be replicated. Bitz said his program costs about $2,500 to put in place in a school, a relatively low cost for a high-tech initiative.

There were nearly 150 applicants in the Mind Trust competition, with ideas that included connecting school children with people who work behind the scenes in the sports industry and creating an after-school book club for girls with themes relevant to the girls' lives.

Like the winning idea, other applications focused on encouraging hands-on student engagement in school, said David Harris, the Mind Trust's president and chief executive officer.

Bitz, who played bass guitar and the upright bass as a kid, said bringing music-making to schools is a sure way to draw kids in.

"There's just something about music that helps kids connect to themselves and the world at large," he said. "I'm trying to capitalize on that in some way."

___

On the Net:

The Mind Trust:

http://www.themindtrust.org/

Youth Music Exchange:

http://youthmusicexchange.org/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/...g7N5S28nJQXs8F

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

[Sun Ship]

It sounds good, but I have to keep my eye (or ear) on this one… Not trying to be overly pessimistic for I do have a strong belief that the intellectual/psychological, cultural, spiritual, and metaphysical importance of music is too often misunderstood or underestimated, and is only given some attention when our youth are listening to music that is full of caustic and destructive lyrics. I just hope this is not another one of those “white liberal” experimental type programs that's only as deep or relevant as the icing on the cake.

You know the 60’s and 70’s were full of these types of programs, usually millions given to the “white liberal” educational community to devise ways to “save the poor under achieving negro” and it even created a whole industry amongst some Black "activist" in our own community who seemed to only be able to function under the auspices of one government or corporate grant after another, which later became known as “poverty pimping” or “cultural pimping”.

I think if there were more and had there been more of these $250,000.00 fellowships given to many of our Black musical and artistic geniuses who have been suffering griots and shamans of the continuity of The Great Black Music we would have a stronger presences of an ADULT creative community not merely visiting but an integral part of the community. For over the years so many of our creative geniuses either have died in poverty unnoticed or at best left the country so they might find a more conducive venue pertaining to their own survival and life works.

There is an insulting play on sentiments when it comes to all of these children programs, as the adult creative and intellectual populace within our communities are dismissed and bypassed. I know artist who can only find some work if they merely direct their works at children programs at best. Children are better served by living examples functioning within the community, not merely programs and events…believe me, there is something real about this.

Music can definitely be used to teach, but if the right music is applied properly it is better used to raise the aptitude and center the mind. This is well known and has been tested.

In closing, I’m reminded of running across one of these “white liberal” educators in a recording studio years ago who had not one but 2 PhDs. He told me that he had been part of all of that type of programming which was supposedly designed to reeducate and elevate the poor inner city youth in the 70's. Now it looked like he had a few drinks in him (it was all strange…so don’t ask), and with his guards down, he admitted that he knew and everybody else involved knew it was all patronizing BS!

__________________________

Here's the guy mentioned in the article presented:



Dr. Michael Bitz, Ed.D., is the Founding Director of The Comic Book Project (www.ComicBookProject.org). An internationally recognized innovator in education, Dr. Bitz has worked to establish creativity at the core of academic learning, and he has done so for some of the most vulnerable children in the United States and elsewhere. As an educational researcher and faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Bitz was an investigator on the landmark study "Learning in and through the Arts," a longitudinal study published by the Arts-Education Partnership in 1999.

In 2001, Dr. Bitz established The Comic Book Project, an art and literacy initiative that has impacted over 50,000 underserved youths. Dr. Bitz and The Comic Book Project have been featured by The Washington Post, National Public Radio, USA Today, and many other media. The results of his work have been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy and Art Education.

In 2005, Dr. Bitz was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Early Career Award from Teachers College, Columbia University and was named a Research Fellow by the Robert Bowne Foundation. In 2006, he was awarded the Union Square Arts Award for Social Justice.


Thanks Sister Jahness

[Im The Truth]

You can guarantee it's a "'white liberal' experimental type" program. I don't see how it's so negative seeing you have to learn math and language to be a productive person in ameriKKKa. Of couse until we use and have our own experimental type programs there will always be a yt liberal programs to attempt to aid poor blacks.

[Sun Ship]

Originally Posted by Im The Truth

You can guarantee it's a "'white liberal' experimental type" program. I don't see how it's so negative seeing you have to learn math and language to be a productive person in ameriKKKa. Of couse until we use and have our own experimental type programs there will always be a yt liberal programs to attempt to aid poor blacks.

That’s sort of my point… We do have work to do, but as I see these type of programs being funded (with sometimes tax dollars), the money (in this case a quarter of a million dollars) is going toward these paternalistic experimental programs and not towards supporting creative foundations that every civilization, community, and culture need to thrive, which are the real divine sparks to ones aptitude, another perspective needs to be given.

We don’t need these experiments and gimmicks; we don’t need more mentoring and role model programs. We need our people to understand that you must build or support the intellectual and creative infrastructures that are already available within your culture. I’ve seen several news stories of how Caucasians used music as an intellectual stimulus, they would play Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach in their children rooms when they were infants, and these children grew up with much higher than so-called normal IQ’s and aptitudes, going to college at 14 and so forth. When I tell Black folks that if you did the same to your children and played certain Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Mile Davis when your children are in the crib to help boost their aptitude they think I’m being esoteric.

What I’m saying is that, we don’t need programs, we need presence. It’s sometimes hard to explain, but believe me it’s real.

There is a concerted effort to not respect the proper adult/elder/master teacher and student relationship that is a part of all cultures, and the elders or master teacher within our community is asked to present himself and his craft solely within an immature theme if he is allowed to make a living. It is an attempt to define the whole Black community and their intellectual-cultural thoughts and expressions on a child-like level, so the important events of the day, life in general, and other adult themes are at no time properly articulated to our children through observing their elder urban griots or shamans properly disseminate them.

I’m not saying that those who do what they do are not still pushing for all that it’s worth, I’m just attempting to expose all of this “goodwill” BS that liberal whites are distracting us, and lulling us to sleep with.

[Im The Truth]

I can agree we don’t need these liberal experimenting in anyway shape or fashion. But a music program to teach math and English is not really experimental. These types of programs are not new. I remember them in school, my parent brought them from private companies when I was little, and even my Aunt has a business that does these type of programs specifically. There are a lot of good programs going on in most of our communities by us. Many times they don’t make the national news like this Mr. Bitz’s program has but nevertheless they are there. I haven’t been to one black community that doesn’t have some type of all-Black community center, non-profit org, or church doing something productive for young people. The major problem is the support and acknowledgement of these programs and services.

Also I don’t see the connection between non-verbal music and intelligence. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I personally believe their scientists create these studies as a form of cultural dominance to “scientifically prove” (read: instill) the “best” of their music breeds intelligence. IMO there are many of their studies which have only that purpose. I guess there is nothing wrong with us doing the same but I wouldn’t call it a fact but more like a way to instill pride in culture through suggestive studies. Similar to the inaccurate idea that “Blacks people come from African Kings and Queens” culturally this instills pride and sense of capability but the facts are some of use come from priest, porters, farmers, fishermen, maids, slaves, criminals, and all other kinds of workers and non-workers.

+++++++++++

Can you explain what you mean by this?

[blockquote]“…the elders or master teacher within our community is asked to present himself and his craft solely within an immature theme if he is allowed to make a living. It is an attempt to define the whole Black community and their intellectual-cultural thoughts and expressions on a child-like level, so the important events of the day, life in general, and other adult themes are at no time properly articulated to our children through observing their elder urban griots or shamans properly disseminate them” [/blockquote]

[Sun Ship]

Originally Posted by Im The Truth

I can agree we don’t need these liberal experimenting in anyway shape or fashion. But a music program to teach math and English is not really experimental. These types of programs are not new. I remember them in school, my parent brought them from private companies when I was little, and even my Aunt has a business that does these type of programs specifically. There are a lot of good programs going on in most of our communities by us. Many times they don’t make the national news like this Mr. Bitz’s program has but nevertheless they are there. I haven’t been to one black community that doesn’t have some type of all-Black community center, non-profit org, or church doing something productive for young people. The major problem is the support and acknowledgement of these programs and services.

Also I don’t see the connection between non-verbal music and intelligence. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I personally believe their scientists create these studies as a form of cultural dominance to “scientifically prove” (read: instill) the “best” of their music breeds intelligence. IMO there are many of their studies which have only that purpose. I guess there is nothing wrong with us doing the same but I wouldn’t call it a fact but more like a way to instill pride in culture through suggestive studies. Similar to the inaccurate idea that “Blacks people come from African Kings and Queens” culturally this instills pride and sense of capability but the facts are some of use come from priest, porters, farmers, fishermen, maids, slaves, criminals, and all other kinds of workers and non-workers.

+++++++++++

Can you explain what you mean by this?

[blockquote]“…the elders or master teacher within our community is asked to present himself and his craft solely within an immature theme if he is allowed to make a living. It is an attempt to define the whole Black community and their intellectual-cultural thoughts and expressions on a child-like level, so the important events of the day, life in general, and other adult themes are at no time properly articulated to our children through observing their elder urban griots or shamans properly disseminate them” [/blockquote]

Brother Truth, everything you have said is worthy of elevating the convo. But there is still a lot to discover and to put back into its proper place. Brother, when you were a child the experimentation phases of some this predated you, and the idea of something “new” is subjective to ones experiences and understanding of socio-cultural history as well as the science behind the arts as far as music and visual art.

What Caucasians were doing as far as using Bach and Beethoven to invoke aptitude is not an invention uniquely created by them (they have discovered nothing new in this world), but has been actually done almost intuitively by high civilizations for eons. As a matter of fact, Pythagoras along with developing an understanding of the universal laws of mathematics while in Kemet (Ancient Egypt) also received an understanding of the metaphysical relationships between mathematics, sound, symbols, form, and so forth, which has been passed down through the centuries more esoterically than what you would be taught in elementary school. The math within “non-verbal” music (as you called it) once theoretically analyzed, is quite complex both rhythmically, arithmetically, and tonally (as in overtones series), and when we consider African or Asiatic music as in India or China we find some of the most complex tonal variations and rhythms in the known world. As we know, hearing, seeing, touching, and even the cells in your body as well as molecules in general have relevance as it applies to certain frequencies that make up our world as we know it.

It is an known fact that your ability to think or process thought can be powerfully altered by sound and even color…like I said there is a lot for you to discover my brother.

Learning in most schools is not an issue solely because the delivery, form, and applicability of the teaching or knowledge has usually been so distorted or so abstract to our youth, but it is more so the lack of certain natural or cultural constructs related to the aptitudinal development of our people that is absent within what should be our most natural and socio-cultural environment, i.e., the home and the neighborhood.

Like the learned elders used to say, “you can’t go out and kill somebody after listen to John Coltrane all day.”

Just like in rap, we have this belief that it is merely the spoken word alone that is influencing our youth, but it is more so the use of a sacred conduit of learning defined as music, which is the “real” inoculator being misused. This construct or inoculation process used properly, which in this case is music, must be environmental and not experimental; like I said, “presence not programs.”

Originally Posted by Sun Ship

“…the elders or master teacher within our community is asked to present himself and his craft solely within an immature theme if he is allowed to make a living. It is an attempt to define the whole Black community and their intellectual-cultural thoughts and expressions on a child-like level, so the important events of the day, life in general, and other adult themes are at no time properly articulated to our children through observing their elder urban griots or shamans properly disseminate them”

Now as it applies to what is said here, it is hard to miss what you have never had as a young man growing up in the last 20 to 30 years. So this becomes hard to explain for it takes a understanding of history and society that is partially intuitive which is not the way most Black history is usually taught by even our own scholars. But there have been clues, such as when John Hendrik Clarke reveals in his documentary whereas he exalted the environment in which he was taught and the social architecture, revealing that the socio-cultural environment was just as an important part of obtaining the scholarship as the scholarship itself. As when he went Arturo Schomburg he had to work up to a plateau rather than the plateau being lowered for his convenience, which in turns gives more credence to the knowledge obtained, as it should.

Children look to adults to see a purview of adulthood as they are in the process of development; this is why children constantly emulate the adult world. Now too many times they see adult activity within their community environment that does not express the complete paradigm of what should be a social and culturally complete reality, from marriage, to elders, to craftsmen, to shamans, to musicians, to farmers, and so on. This goes back to primordial times, and is the backbone to most civil human experiences. You cannot have a civil learning experience when these important aspects of civility are turned into part time school programs being exemplified outside of a real environment whereas the learned elder or Griot is forced to dilute the veracity of his world to fit the concerns of white social scientist detached from our world, and who view the development of our people within a capsule or experiment. You cannot replace a socio-cultural normality that’s thousands of years old, with social programs.

Baba Ahmed and I dealt with this in a thread dealing with this whole mentorship concept being pushed on our people. All of this stuff just keeps us from developing real communities and families structures for they are all substitutes to having a LIFE.

[Im The Truth]

Originally Posted by sun ship

Children look to adults to see a purview of adulthood as they are in the process of development; this is why children constantly emulate the adult world. Now too many times they see adult activity within their community environment that does not express the complete paradigm of what should be a social and culturally complete reality, from marriage, to elders, to craftsmen, to shamans, to musicians, to farmers, and so on. This goes back to primordial times, and is the backbone to most civil human experiences. You cannot have a civil learning experience when these important aspects of civility are turned into part time school programs being exemplified outside of a real environment whereas the learned elder or Griot is forced to dilute the veracity of his world to fit the concerns of white social scientist detached from our world, and who view the development of our people within a capsule or experiment. You cannot replace a socio-cultural normality that’s thousands of years old, with social programs.

Baba Ahmed and I dealt with this in a thread dealing with this whole mentorship concept being pushed on our people. All of this stuff just keeps us from developing real communities and families structures for they are all substitutes to having a LIFE.

I don’t think the idea of mentorship is bad or a replacement but similar to what we had before of course the major and most important differences is the fact the mentors were not outsiders – any person not from your neighborhood. While I don’t think the idea of mentoring is a bad idea it’s not the best idea it is a replacement from the void left by integration. That void in leadership really can’t go unchecked because it leads to what we have today young people with no purpose, no direction, no useable skills, no relationship skills, and a serious false sense of reality. While mentoring is not the best idea it does fill the leadership void left by irresponsible persons and systematically trapped persons. So since our socio-cultural normality is different than it once was do you think it is necessary to go back to our previous socio-cultural normality? Or adjust our current state to a some what new state? How, why for either?