In Thursday’s (1/2) Republic (Arizona), Kerry Lengel writes about a recent visit to a fifth-grade classroom where Laurie Stearns Selby, a cellist in the Phoenix Symphony, helps students “dissect” a specially prepared Velcro cello as part of a science lesson on human anatomy. “The unorthodox study session is part of Mind Over Music, a pilot program by the Phoenix Symphony now entering its second year at ASU Preparatory Academy, a charter school in downtown Phoenix that serves a high percentage of low-income students.… In the first year, 83.4 percent of MOM participants scored 85 percent or higher on science assessments, compared with 51 percent of the control group.… The average improvement over all subject areas was 17.2 percentage points.… Mind Over Music was launched as a three-year pilot program, but the symphony is looking to secure grants to continue and even expand it to other schools…. [Phoenix Symphony] CEO and President Jim Ward acknowledges…. ‘As we went out in the world to raise funds for our existing music-education programs, we kept getting asked about the impact that we were having. People wanted to know what the results were—with numbers.’ ”
Posted January 8, 2014
Pictured: Students Tatiana (L) and Fernando (R) help Phoenix Symphony musician Mark Dix as he explains sound transmission. Photo by Daniel Friedman
