Yale 1957 Class Project

Memo to: Participants in the class project

From: Malcolm Mitchell and Don Roberts

June, 2001

Memo to: Members of the Yale Class of 1957

From: Malcolm Mitchell and Don Roberts

Re: 1957’s Music in Schools Initiative - The Class Project

Now, 18 months after our last report to the class and a year before our 45th Reunion, seems like a good time to bring you up-to-date on the Class Project.

The project grew from a feeling, first discussed at our 40th Reunion, that it is time for us to give something back to the community at large. From five or six topic ideas the Class Council in 1998 unanimously selected "Music in Schools" as the class project. The goal of the project is to add our voices to the advocacy for expanded music education in our nation’s primary and secondary schools. We want to try to reverse the decline evident in music education nationally.

In addition to the clear social benefit that will flow from this project, there were several other reasons we felt "Music in Schools" was a good choice for our class: classmates anywhere in the country can work on it; the project will not involve significant fund raising; it ties into the historic importance of music at Yale; and it will be easy to introduce a Yale/New Haven element into the project.

The project has four tasks:
  1. gather research that establishes links between music education in schools and the well-being of young people, both academic and emotional;
  2. collect anecdotes and studies of music programs that are benefiting young people and schools, looking for the ingredients that have made these programs successful;
  3. disseminate the information gathered through the first two tasks in such a way, and to such an audience, as to best further our objective; and
  4. develop and implement programs, either independently or with others, that we feel, on the basis of what we have learned, have the best chances of leading to expanded music education in our schools. There should be opportunity, working with the Yale School of Music, to establish a pilot project in the New Haven public schools system.
Since we last wrote you much has been accomplished.

First, this letterhead. 50 classmates were on the 1998 letterhead; now we have 72 participants. In addition we are thrilled to add as honorary participants Frederica von Stade and Emanuel Ax, musicians of international acclaim. Both are passionate about music education in our schools and applaud the goal of the project. Note also at the bottom of the letterhead that the project now (through Phil Richards’ very good work) has its own web page: http://www.musicinschools.org. Log on for a full report!

Here’s where we are on the project’s four tasks.

Research

Our sincere thanks to Steve Hopkins for his work overseeing this effort. Steve has found sources for a great deal of serious scientific work providing evidence that the human brain has innate capacity to understand emotion and meaning in music. Attached is a copy of a Newsweek report on this from last summer.

More meaningful to our project, considerable research confirms a tie between music training and improved academic performance. Music participation increases a child’s ability to learn basic math and reading. Students who participate in music programs score significantly higher on standardized tests. Research also shows that students involved in music are less likely to engage in anti-social behavior.

The College Board reported last year that students with course work in or involvement with music score an average of 100 points higher on SAT tests than students not engaged in music. A 1999 study by UCLA’s Graduate School of Education examined data on more than 25,000 high school students for 10 years. The study concluded: Students who report consistent high levels of involvement in instrumental music over the middle and high school years show significantly higher levels of mathematical proficiency by grade 12. This observation holds both generally and for students from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Should you wish more information on the tie between music involvement and academic performance, Steve suggests two web sites: www.musica.uci.edu - a compilation of scholarly research, and www.amc-music.org - a source of research and advocacy information.

Program Studies and Anecdotes

We have designed a Questionnaire to be used by classmates to gather and record information on the state of school music programs across the country. A dozen or more classmates have selected a school district near them and are beginning to nterview school officials and others. The information they collect will be funneled into a central processing capability that we are now creating.

The effort will necessarily involve the Internet and our project web site, because of the ease of e-mail communicating and the flexibility of posting, editing, and reading that the web site offers. While we intend eventually to produce a printed version of the project results, there is really no way we can handle the information to be collected and collated except through the Internet.

For those classmates who have not yet become computer semi-literate, like the two of us, we will tell you that semi- is perfectly sufficient for our purposes and not a difficult level of competency to achieve. Ask a young person - i.e., someone under 40 - for a bit of help.

In addition to providing Questionnaire information, some classmates are describing in anecdotal fashion particular programs or activities in their areas that have caught their attention. These may be in-school programs or offerings by local musicians. In either case they bring musical experiences to school children and thereby improve both the musical understanding and the overall academic success of those children. Again, classmates’ anecdotal contributions will be organized on our project web site and available for all to read.

Dissemination

Through the above efforts, we will have gathered by 2007 a large body of information on nationwide music research and music programs relating to music in schools. This information will not only help us in our advocacy for enhanced music education and in our efforts to implement programs (as described below); it will also be highly valuable to others across the country who are also advocates or activists for music education.

Our intention, therefore, is to develop a means to share this information with as many people as would like to have it. This suggests use of our project web site, but could also involve presentations and other forms of communication to interested individuals or groups. As our information gathering and collating procedures improve and the results grow, we’ll address the goal of disseminating that information.

Implementing School Programs

We are still early in our work on the project’s 4th phase, developing and implementing programs that have the best chance to expand music education in our schools. We hope, in this phase, to forge links with the Yale School of Music and the New Haven school system.

We have seen numerous not-for-profit programs intended to enhance music education in schools. And we expect with your help to find many successful public school music programs. Doubtless we will find many fine school music programs that may serve as models and inspiration for advocates in schools that lack such programs. Much work remains to be done here.

However, through the good offices of Dave Mininberg, or to be more precise his wife Anne, we have had a hand in the following encouraging initiative. In March Dean Robert Blocker of the Yale School of Music and Regina Warner of the New Haven Board of Education met with Katherine Damkohler, Executive Director of Education through Music, a 10 year old New York City based not-for-profit that has successfully integrated music into the basic curriculum at ten New York area junior high or middle schools (thereby reaching all 6,000 students in those schools).

Under discussion is the possibility of Education through Music establishing its well tested program at a New Haven junior high school. This would tie nicely to a very successful, 10 year old arts magnet high school (music, dance, studio art and theater) that serves 400 students and is located a block or two from the Yale campus. Interestingly, Ms. Warner, a former opera singer, founded this school, and many Yale School of Music faculty members and students do pro bono teaching there. This is an exciting possibility!

All of the results so far in the above four areas have been accomplished through the combined efforts of many classmates, efforts that included contacts, introductions, reviews and commentaries on draft documents, suggestions, and other proofs of an eagerness to participate in our class project. We two are, as the letterhead notes, merely coordinators. A project of this scope can only be successful as a true class project.

As we prepare for next year’s reunion and for the continuation of the project through to our 50th in 2007, we ask all of you to come forth and begin to get involved. There is a role for every classmate at any level of commitment, including the commitment to keep abreast of the project and become active in it when other responsibilities begin to diminish.

Let us hear from you!

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