Читать книгу Teaching Piano to Students With Special Needs - Mary Ann Froehlich - Страница 5

Effective education techniques lead the brain down paths it naturally follows. The brain simultaneously processes along many paths, more complex than our original understanding of left and right hemispheres. Music making connects multiple brain sites. Dr. Leslie Hart views linear activities which do not connect multiple brain sites as brain-antagonistic methods. Learning to play an instrument is the ideal cross-brain activity. It requires cross-modal learning, integrating auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, cognitive, emotional, and social skills. Music education is a brain-compatible experience.

Dr. Mel Levine identifies these modes as eight neurodevelopmental systems: attention control, memory, language, motor, higher thinking, social, spatial, and sequential ordering. Dr. Howard Gardner views them as seven intelligences or problem-solving capabilities: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, body/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. You may know Gardner’s approach as the theory of multiple intelligences. Experts may offer different terms but most would agree with Dr. Levine’s concept that the brain is a tool chest filled with a variety of delicate instruments enabling us to learn skills and perform tasks.

Dr. Levine believes that our brains are uniquely wired, with weak and strong neurodevelopmental systems, each requiring regular exercise to stay in shape. Healthy adults have learned to compensate, capitalizing on their strong systems while working on their weak ones. Children need compassionate guidance in developing their tool chests.

As music educators, first we must teach the way the brain learns. Our challenge with special needs students is to teach the way individual brains learn, tailoring programs for different learning styles and needs. Music making is a natural integrator of neurodevelopmental systems yet a teacher who does not understand how the brain learns can block the process.