“Everyone has music inside them as an inherent way of communicating and connecting,” says Bernie Heard from the Australian Youth Orchestra and Manager of Music in Me, its national mentoring program. “Our role as parents, as teachers, is to try and nurture music in every young person.”
In this episode of Helping Hands, Bernie is joined by Mia Patoulios, CEO of Sydney Youth Orchestras; and Rachel Holmes, a teacher at Wilcannia Public School in far-western NSW, to discuss the benefits of music in education.
“The research indicates that music has benefits on their (children’s) social development, on their cognitive development, on their language, on all areas of their environment. If music is integrated into other areas of learning, it means that they are so much more engaged,” adds Bernie.
However, providing access to, and therefore the benefits of, music in the classroom is only possible by first equipping teachers with both the resources and confidence to teach it.
That’s where innovative educational platform, Learning for Good, has stepped in to fill the gap, especially for schools in remote and rural areas, where the extra challenge of geographical isolation must also be overcome to integrate music effectively into classroom learning.
“We can’t be in every classroom, and we can’t take an orchestra to every school,” says Mia, from Sydney Youth Orchestra. “But with Learning for Good, we can … so much of what is beneficial is in music and music education. When that’s accessible, it lays down all sorts of different pathways. It improves cognitive thinking, problem solving. And these are all things that we need our young people to be really well-versed in, in a world that’s changing very rapidly.”
The resources on the Learning for Good educational platform provide access to Sydney Youth Orchestras' programs for students and teachers from the early stages of discovery through to more complex and interactive learning. It also provides access to the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Music in Me mentoring program.
For teachers like Rachel, who teaches in the remote community of Wilcannia, taking advantage of both of these offerings through Learning for Good has been a game-changer and made a huge impact in her classroom. She believes it makes perfect sense to rethink the way music education is delivered so that digital technology can be used to access resources and expertise.
Rachel met weekly with her Music in Me mentor online over the course of two terms. They partnered to co-teach regular music lessons to Rachel’s students, and Rachel’s mentor inspired her with great ways to incorporate music into the classroom across the whole day, from “brain breaks” to adopting melodies to aid students as they memorised concepts in literacy and numeracy.
Rachel says that the online Music in Me mentoring program was, “an amazing opportunity to learn from her (mentor) … It’s definitely building the confidence of teachers in a program like that ... Having access and partnerships to people like the Sydney Youth Orchestras and Learning for Good platforms have been really positive for us in terms of teaching subjects that are maybe a little bit out of our comfort zones as teachers.”
See the BENEFITS OF MUSIC IN EDUCATION discussion and the full catalogue of Helping Hands panels at helpinghands.tv. Catch up on full episodes of Helping Hands on 9NOW.
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* Our panellists, Bernie Heard, Mia Patoulios and Rachel Holmes, and the Helping Hands producers are available for interview on radio, TV and online to discuss this topic. Get in touch at helpinghands.tv/contact/
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