WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

About Education in the Arts

“An educational foundation is only part of the equation. In order for creativity to flourish and imagination to take hold, we also need to expose our children to the arts from a very young age.”
~ First Lady Michelle Obama

Does training in the arts make us smart? Recent research from a consortium of neuroscientists from seven universities created by the philanthropic Dana Foundation revealed the following:

• An interest in performing arts helps children develop focused attention spans.
• There is a link between training in music and the ability to manipulate information in both short-term and long-term memory.
• Music training is closely correlated with improvements in reading fluency, math calculation and capacity for geometric representation.
• Dance is learned through observation and mimicry, which appears to improve other cognitive skills.
  

“The nation’s top business executives agree that arts education programs can help repair weaknesses in American education and better prepare workers for the 21st century.”
~ The Changing Workplace is Changing Our View of Education”, BusinessWeek

“An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently.”
~ Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor

“Children learn better with arts as part of the curriculum. They learn all their subjects better. They’re more engaged. Teacher attendance goes up. The child is happier; the teacher is happier.”
~ Jane Alexander, former Chair, National Endowment for the Arts

About Dance Education

According to The National Dance Education Organization:

• Research shows that brain function in learning dance demonstrates that both hemispheres of the brain are actively engaged. (Brown and Parsons, Scientific American, June 2008).
• Research shows children in early childhood are sensory, motor, and concrete thinkers who learn best from processing information physically through bodily movement and through their senses. (Piaget, Werner, Cassirer, Vygotsky, and Kestenberg.)
• Dance taught as an artistic discipline develops 21st century skills required in our workforce – the ability to focus, be persistent and engaged in one’s work; exercise tolerance, cooperation and collaboration; to solve big problems and exercise critical thinking; and be creative, imaginative and innovative. (AEP ImaginNation 2008; Research in Dance Education database 2009). Dance supports these skills.
• Statistics have demonstrated that students who study dance score an average 36 and 15 points higher on verbal and math SATs. (College Entrance Examination Board, Student Descriptive Questionnaire)
  

About Kindermusik

“Kindermusik is elegant in its integrated approach to a child’s development. Physiologically, touch, movement, rhythm and sound are the keystones to developing a healthy vestibular system and optimizing nervous system and brain growth. The importance of having families working together, where everyone benefits from the sense of belonging, gets directly at the heart of what we, as a society, are needing at this time to raise healthy, loving children and ensure a world of peace. All of this is provided in the Kindermusik program.”
~ Carla Hannaford, Ph.D., Biologist, educator and author of Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head and The Dominance Factor

“Current research has shown that movement is the key to learning at any age. Our brains fully develop through movement activities such as crawling, rolling, turning, walking, skipping, reaching, and much more. When children and adults participate in Kindermusik classes, they are developing both sides of their brains through structured and creative music and movement activities. Television, video games and computers have helped to produce a generation that struggles with learning problems, hyperactivity and obesity. Many of these problems can be helped through systematic music/movement exercises and patterns. Kindermusik classes have always been fun. Now I feel strongly that they are also part of our essential learning process!”
~ Anne Green Gilbert, Movement specialist, author of Creative Dance for All Ages, and director Of Creative Dance Center

“Kindermusik addresses a child’s development in many various and powerful ways. Repeated exposure to musical activities develops important cognitive and behavioral skills. Some musical activities can help develop inhibitory control – the ability to control or stop one’s movements. Also, changing volume, rate and pitch in songs and activities teaches a child discrimination, a crucial factor to listening and language processing.”
~ Ed Dougherty, Ph.D., Neuropsychologist

“Playing with objects such as the scarf play in Kindermusik Village encourages a baby to make sounds and words and helps her anticipate outcomes which are central to conversational development and language acquisition. Varying pitches between high and low in Kindermusik class stimulates these first foundations for a baby or young child’s learning the variety of sounds of language.”
~ Dan DeJoy, Ph.D., Speech-Language Pathologist