Manitoba's Commission on Kindergarten to Grade 12 Education

Manitoba Music Educators’ Association of Manitoba Submission to Manitoba's Commission on Kindergarten to Grade 12 Education

The Manitoba Music Educators’ Association of Manitoba/L'Association manitobaine des éducateurs de musique (MMEA) is grateful to the Manitoba Government for this opportunity to help shape our education system. The MMEA is one of the largest music education associations in Canada representing over 700 Manitoba music educators who are keenly interested in helping to “ignite change and inspire excellence in education” (Manitoba Education and Training, 2019, p. 3). The MMEA is a strong, unified, active community made up of four partner organizations. The Manitoba Band Association, the Manitoba Choral Association, the Manitoba Classroom Guitar Association and the Manitoba Orff Chapter have all contributed to this submission.

Manitoba has developed rich and relevant music education opportunities for its students in schools across the province. For many years, Manitoba music educators have endeavoured to facilitate the holistic development of engaged, contributing citizens who are responsible, respectful, open-minded, independent, and engaged.

The goal of the MMEA is to support and promote music education and provide a unified voice for music educators in our communities. (MMEA Mission Statement, www.mymmea.ca). The MMEA believes that the goal of supporting and promoting music education aligns with the goal of the commission to “find the best solutions for Manitoba’s education system to ensure our students can succeed in today’s global community no matter what path they choose” (Manitoba Education and Training, 2019, p. 2).

A compelling body of research and academic writing provides evidence for positive links between music education and academic benefits, social-emotional and mental health well-being, and student engagement, all important for Manitoba students to succeed in today’s global community. This well-established and growing body of research supports the need for music education to be a part of the following five focus areas identified by Manitoba Education and Training:

  1. Long-term vision

  2. Student learning

  3. Teaching

  4. Accountability for student learning

  5. Funding

A relationship between the study of music and academic success, student engagement and social and emotional benefits has been described in writing and reviews of music research for many decades (See Appendix A). Substantiating “evidence from the cognitive neuroscience of music supports the research indicating that experiences in music may be beneficial in a variety of ways...Widespread cortical and subcortical music processing suggests possible links to a variety of non-music areas important to learning and emotion” (Peters, 2011, p. 72). In their review of the neurobiology of music, Wang and Agius note: “Plasticity is heavily involved in all functions of the brain related to music. The role of mirror neuron systems of the brain appears to be of great importance and parallels exist in the development and functioning of language and music” (2018, p. 588). Numerous studies describe how music education can change and shape brain development (Hyde et al, 2009).

The research indicated above and found elsewhere in a wide range of authoritative literature supports the value of music education as important for the following questions taken from the six Manitoba Education and Training commission focus areas:

Focus Area 1: Long-term vision

What are the most important things for students to gain from their K-12 education?

In the 21st century, students need multiple ways to perceive the world and to make and communicate meaning. They need multiple ways of knowing and creative and critical thinking skills to analyze their worlds, to generate ideas and be empowered with agency to enact them. All disciplines and subject areas must be viewed as important since each discipline provides a different and unique lens and perspective with which to understand students’ worlds. The unique discipline of music has intrinsic and cultural value; it deserves a place in all children’s education.

What could our system do better to help students achieve these important goals?

It is very important for schools to be able to offer scheduled music classes taught by qualified professional music educators. Any future restructuring of education in Manitoba that does not consider and value music and arts education as crucial to a holistic education for all learners, may result in a reduction of music classes or music being taught be classroom teachers without specific music education training. This would negatively affect our students.

Our system could better help students to achieve important music learning if attention is paid to the following critical points:

  • Ensure that efforts to improve our educational system do not lead to unintended negative consequences for music education as described below;

  • Avoid restricting the timetable through block scheduling as this negatively affects the scheduling of quality music education;

  • Avoid saturating course offerings with multiple options which negatively affects music education;

  • Avoid taking time from early years music instruction in an effort to give more instructional time to literacy and numeracy; music education directly supports literacy and numeracy as described in Focus Area 3;

  • Avoid redirecting Middle and Senior Years music teacher assignments in order to cover additional Math or English courses in efforts to improve literacy and numeracy; music education directly supports literacy and numeracy as described in Focus Area 3.

  • In the event of division amalgamations, the new leadership of the new divisions would ideally continue to support the existing music education opportunities within each school

Focus Area 2: Student Learning

What are the conditions required to achieve excellence in student achievement and outcomes in Manitoba?

Learning in the 21st century is moving away from fact-based knowledge and toward skills, competencies, and the ability to synthesize new meaning. No longer needing to memorize the information our technology can offer us, to achieve excellence in achievement and outcomes students must be able to creatively connect seemingly disparate ideas in new ways in an effort to solve societal issues. These kinds of skills are strongly connected to our ability to notice patterns, consider alternative perspectives, know our own tendencies, and anticipate the needs of our self and others. Music education inherently supports the development of these skills.

Social emotional learning is strongly linked to excellence in achievement and learning outcomes. Research in Appendix A includes evidence for positive links between studying music and improved social emotional development.

Yoder (2013) points out:

Social-emotional competencies not only prepare students to be able to participate in learning experiences, they also increase students’ capacity to learn (Durlak et al., 2011). Student learning is enhanced when teachers integrate social-emotional competencies with academic learning (Elias, 2004). For example, when students develop social-emotional competencies, they are more motivated to learn and committed to school (as seen through improved attendance and graduation rates), and they are less likely to act out in class, get suspended, or be held back (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). Yoder, 2013, p. 5

Yoder (2013) lists five core social emotional learning competencies that affect learning. These five competencies can be realized through quality music education in the following ways:

  • Self-Awareness: music learning facilitates introspective practice as students develop the ability to notice their own thoughts, feelings, and errors.

  • Self-Management: music learning encourages students to address the issues they notice through goal setting, delayed gratification, time management, and intelligent sequencing.

  • Social Awareness: music learning invites us to consider the experiences of others as compared to our own, anticipating shared or individual challenges and working together to address them.

  • Relationship Management: music learning with others enhances our understanding of the mutual influence individuals have on each other and the ways in which we can nurture these relationships.

  • Responsible Decision Making: music learning requires that students learn to prioritize, persevere through struggles, and take ownership of their individual and community success.

The conditions required to achieve excellence in student achievement and outcomes includes natural supports such as relationships and personal associations locally developed and based on reciprocity (The Change Collection, 2017). These natural supports give students a sense of belonging, identity, security, and self-esteem and promote resiliency, social integration, and positive development (The Change Collective, 2017). Music education inherently connects students with supportive relationships, peers and mentors, which require reciprocity and help students learn to be contributing members of a community.

How can we improve student success and achievement?

The research in Appendix A indicates that student success and achievement can be improved if every K-12 student has access to quality music education. Quality music education involves active engagement in music making through listening, singing, playing, conducting, composing, arranging, and improvising which together build the creative and critical skills and thinking required by today’s and future children.

How can we improve student engagement and support learners in high school completion and beyond?

The research included in Appendix A and elsewhere in the literature provides evidence that music education helps improve student engagement and supports learners to stay in school. Student engagement and sustained learning are strongly linked to meaningful relationships and positive communities. Music rooms are one of the few places left in our society where success is dependent upon a shared collaborative communal and relational experience. For example, superintendents and consultants in the Frontier School Division have publicly stated that their music education programs, in particular, fiddling, are an important factor in keeping students in school and engaged.

Learners need a reason to stay in school and to continue learning even after completing Grade 12. Music education often gives students that reason to stay in school and to continue learning. Tens of thousands of Manitoba citizens continue to enjoy music making experiences after Grade 12 and throughout their lives. Manitoba citizens participate in hundreds of ensembles such as choirs, bands, folk groups, ceremonial music making groups, etc. This is all supported through vibrant music education in schools.

“Emotions are critically important for students’ engagement with academic tasks” (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012, p. 278) and “they profoundly affect students’ academic engagement and performance” (p. 259). We can improve student engagement and support sustained learning to high school and beyond by providing opportunities for students to experience deep emotional connection to their learning through music education.

“Music has been described as one of the purest expressions of emotions that exists; music illuminates the fundamental integrative function of emotion (Levitin, 2006). The process of creating and listening to music is a form of emotional experience and affective communication that is profoundly integrative” (Siegel, 2015, pp. 178-179).

Focus Area 3: Teaching

How can we help teachers and school leaders become most effective?

Teachers and school leaders must ensure ongoing professional development in areas that support all learners, for example, literacy and numeracy Professional Development (PD) that also includes the literacies of arts and music education, STEAM PD (science, technology, engineering, arts and math), and PD to support students’ emotional well-being and positive mental health. PD that provides information and awareness about trauma can help teachers and school leaders better understand and consider the lived experiences of those they support as they design learning, policy, and practice.

Research-based practices are important to support all teachers, including music educators and school leaders. Research-based practices inform instructional decision-making, and along with historical and philosophical research, provide perspective in designing curriculum, including music curriculum, to meet the needs of students and communities.

Research into education systems with documented successful education practices, for example, Finland, could help transform our education system into one that is world-class.

Research into successful provincially supported development of core competencies across all subject areas, for example, British Columbia, could help teachers and school leaders become more effective (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies)

What improvements could teachers make to better help students achieve their goals?

One of the goals of the commission is to improve literacy and numeracy for all students. Manitoba Education and Training defines literacy and numeracy as “more than reading and writing words, numbers or symbols on a page” (Manitoba Education and Training, 2019, p. 1). Morin elaborates: “Being literate in today’s society means more than just being able to read and write the written word. Literacy and learning in new educational environments requires students to be multiliterate” (Morin, 2006, p. 11).

The concept of multiliteracies addresses the complexities of meaning-making in the 21st century and recognizes the importance of multiple modalities for meaning-making (Serafini & Gee, 2017). Cope and Kalantzis (2009) note that the “of all the changes currently underway...one of the most significant challenges to the old literacy teaching is the increasing multimodality of meaning” (p.12). They describe a range of important modalities that includes music and sound.

In order to better help students achieve their goals, teachers need to expand notions of literacy pedagogy to include multiliteracies and multiple modalities, including music so that learners today have a diverse range of ways to make and communicate meaning. Music education is an important literacy and mode of meaning-making that should be available for all learners.

Musical learning is also a fundamental component of print text literacy learning. The elements of music permeate print text literacy. Variations in pitch, tone, timing and volume carry an enormous amount of the meaning of text.

There is a wealth of research located in the reviews of Music research in Appendix A that points to the positive relationship between music and print text literacy. Numerous studies indicate the benefits of music and musical activities for print text literacy learning and oral language learning. Language can be considered a subset of music and this relationship is also noted in the way the brain processes language and music through integrated neural networks (Hanson, 2014; Koelsch, 2011).

Thomas Armstrong declares that: “It seems critically important that we acknowledge this important connections between words and music and use it fully as we can to help our students read and write more effectively” (2003, p. 55). David Sousa agrees; in his book “How the Brain Learns,” he notes ways that rhyme, rhythm, and music enhance learning for children.

Focus Area 4: Accountability for student learning

Is the current system providing equitable learning outcomes for all students?

Every K-12 student should have the right to a high quality music education and while Manitoba is internationally known for its outstanding music education programs, the current system does not provide equitable music learning for all students. Dedicated time for music education with a competent music educator must be allotted in every school.

Focus Area 5: Governance

What type of governance structures are needed to create a coordinated and relevant education system?

Education is relevant to the realities of citizens when local voices have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making processes that guide programming, spending, and implementation.

Focus Area 6: Funding

What actions are required to ensure that the education system is sustainable and provides equitable learning opportunities for all children and youth?

Ensure adequate funding so that every K-12 learner in Manitoba has equitable access to quality music education.

Conclusion

Music is a vehicle of culture, but it is also something that can be understood by all people at its most basic level, regardless of language or background. It is both a way of understanding and appreciating difference and of sharing a common vocabulary of meaning.

Given the direction of our industry and economy toward automation, an education that prioritizes the ability to creatively explore diverse connections is an asset to any society. Music education and other arts education opportunities enhance our students’ ability to think and act in 21st century ways that will keep Manitoba at the forefront of innovation and wellbeing.

We absolutely do want our students to grow stronger in their numeracy and literacy achievement. Music education is a valuable part of that effort. It would be unfortunate and out of step with current research to treat music and arts learning opportunities as expendable extras that take away from other learning. In fact, it is our informed belief that music and arts courses enhance all learning as well as the students doing that learning.

References

Armstrong, T. (2003). The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing: Making the Words Come Alive. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Collective, T. C. (2017). Working with vulnerable youth to enhance their natural supports : A practice framework. Calgary, AB: Author.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies: An international journal, 4(3), 164-195.

Fasano, M. C., Semeraro, C., Cassibba, R., Kringelbach, M. L., Monacis, L., de Palo, V., ... & Brattico, E. (2019). Short-term orchestral music training modulates hyperactivity and inhibitory control in school-age children: a longitudinal behavioural study. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 750.

Goopy, J. (2013). ‘Extra-musical effects’ and benefits of programs founded on the Kodaly philosophy. Australian Journal of Music Education, 2, 31-78.

Gouzouasis, P., Guhn, M., & Kishor, N. (2007). The predictive relationship between achievement and participation in music and achievement in core Grade 12 academic subjects. Music Education Research, 9(1), 81-92.

Hallam, S. (2010). The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education, 28(3), 269-289.

Hansen et al. (2014). The Music and Literacy Connection. Lanham, Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield.

Helmrich, B. H. (2010). Window of opportunity? Adolescence, music, and algebra. Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(4), 557-577.

Holochwost S.J., Wolf D.P., Fisher K.R., O’Grady K., Gagnier K.M. (2018) The arts and socioemotional development: Evaluating a new mandate for arts education. In R. Rajan & I. O'Neal (Eds.), Arts evaluation and assessment (pp. 147-180). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hyde, K. L., Lerch, J., Norton, A., Forgeard, M., Winner, E., Evans, A. C., & Schlaug, G. (2009). Musical training shapes structural brain development. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(10), 3019-3025.

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (Eds.). (2001). Transformations in language and learning: Perspectives on multiliteracies. Australia: Common Ground.

Kaviani, H., Mirbaha, H., Pournseh, M., & Sagan, O. (2013). Can music lessons increase the performance of preschool children in IQ test? Cognitive Processing, 15(1), 77-84.

Kawase, S., Ogawa, J., Obata, S., & Hirano, T. (2018). An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Onset Age of Musical Lessons and Levels of Sociability in Childhood. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2244.

Koelsch, S. (2011). “Toward a Neural Basis of Music Perception- A Review and Updated Model,” Frontiers in Psychology 2(16), 110.

Leung, M. C., & Cheung, R. Y. (2018). Music engagement and well-being in Chinese adolescents: Emotional awareness, positive emotions, and negative emotions as mediating processes. Psychology of Music, 0305735618786421.

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Peters, B. (2011). A formative study of rhythm and pattern: Semiotic potential of multimodal experiences for early years readers. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba.

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Morris, S. L., Wagner, E. F., & Wales, E. (2018). Music education as a path to positive youth development: An El Sistema-inspired program. Journal of Youth Development, 13(4), 149-163.

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Wang, S., & Agius, M. (2018). The neuroscience of music; a review and summary. Psychiatria Danubina, 30(Suppl 7), 588-594.

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Appendix A: Selected Reviews of Music Research and Supporting Evidence for the Positive Relationship Between the Study of Music and Academic Success, Student Engagement, and Social and Emotional Benefits

  • Boyes & Reid, 2005

  • Butzlaff, 2000

  • Deasy, 2002

  • Kawase, Ogawa, Obata, & Hirano, 2018

  • Fasano, Semeraro, Cassibba, Kringelbach, Monacis, de Palo, et al, 2019 Fiske, 1999

  • Goopy, 2013 (Social emotional) Gouzouasis, Guhn, & Kishor, 2007 Gullat, 2007

  • Hallam, 2010

  • Helmrich, 2010

  • Hetland, 2000

  • Hetland & Winner, 2004

  • Kaviani, Mirbaha, Pournseh, Sagan, 2013 (increased IQ) Lessard & Bolduc, 2011

  • Leung & Cheung, 2018

  • Morin, 2004

  • Morris, Wagner, & Wales, 2018

  • Palleson et al., 2010 (Enhanced memory)

  • Rabkin & Redmond, 2004; 2006

  • Schellenberg, 2001

  • Schellenberg, 2004; 2006

  • Schellenberg 2011 (Social Emotional)

  • Scripp, 2002

  • Standley, 1996

  • Vaughn, 2000

  • Wetter, Koerner, & Schwaninger, 2009

  • Winner & Hetland, 2000

  • Winsler, Gara, Alegrado, Castro & Tavassolie, 2019

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