To Whom It May Concern: $900 million would buy a kajillion recorders. And that would be a good thing, because?

http://bit.ly/aM6TOr “Obama unveils $900 million in ‘turnaround’ grants for schools.”

Turning around something that doesn’t work anymore begins the moment you begin to do something that does work.  In the case of learning how to learn, one of the curriculum ideas that does work to grow a mind that can learn anything is making music from early childhood on.

As the 2009-2010 school year winds down, and visions of ’school turnaround’ dance in our heads, I suggest an inexpensive, simple, and proven turnaround (aka ‘intervention strategy’) to increase student concentration, mood uplift and left-brain/right-brain coordination (aka “critical thinking”)  practically overnight.

I give you … the lowly recorder:

Music to your frontal lobes? The L.A. Times’ Melissa Healy reveals all in today’s Health section: “Music Works on the Brain”, “Effect of Music on Cognitive Function” , and “The Hope of Music’s Healing Powers”.

“He is a kid with the attention span of an anesthesiologist, the persistence and discipline of an Olympic athlete and the emotional range of an artist.”

“A positive mood [such as produced, for example, making music] increases focus and attention, which improves performance on many tests of mental sharpness. In some, but not all, studies, that includes improvements in the kind of mental skills we use in doing complex math problems, interpreting driving directions and pondering how to fit a large bookcase in the trunk of a small car.”

Give a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS4F0PIVwuc&feature=player_embedded#