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<\/a><\/p>\nWhat’s the best way to meet these goals?<\/p>\n
If I want my students to learn math, is math teaching the best way to go? If I want them to understand history, should I teach more history?<\/p>\n
Or, instead, is there a handy shortcut?<\/p>\n
If I could help students improve their reading by teaching something other than reading, that alternate approach just might be more efficient and motivating.<\/p>\n
In fact, two candidates get lots of attention as “alternative approaches.”\u00a0 If either or both pan out, they would offer us more choices. Maybe even a higher chance of success.<\/p>\n
Music and Math<\/h2>\n
I don’t remember where I first heard that music<\/em> education improves math<\/em> learning. Specifically: learning to play the violin ultimately makes students better at learning calculus.<\/p>\n The explanation focused on “strengthened neural circuits” “repurposed” for “higher cognitive function.” Something like that. That string of words sounded quite impressive, and inclined me to believe.<\/p>\n Given the complexity of calculus, that would be really helpful!<\/p>\n But: is it true?<\/p>\n A recent meta-analysis<\/a> looked at 54 relevant studies, including just under 7,000 participants.<\/p>\n Their findings? Let me quote key points from their summary:<\/p>\n Music training has repeatedly been claimed to positively impact children\u2019s cognitive skills and academic achievement (literacy and mathematics).<\/p>\n This claim relies on the assumption that engaging in intellectually demanding activities fosters particular domain-general cognitive skills, or even general intelligence.<\/p>\n The present meta-analytic review shows that this belief is incorrect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Once the quality of study design is controlled for, the overall effect of music training programs is null.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It gets worse:<\/p>\n Small statistically significant overall effects are obtained only in those studies implementing no random allocation<\/strong> of participants and employing non-active controls<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words: you get this result only if the study isn’t correctly designed.<\/p>\n And worse:<\/p>\n Interestingly, music training is ineffective regardless of the type of outcome measure<\/strong> (e.g., verbal, non-verbal, speed-related, etc.), participants\u2019 age, and duration of training.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That is: no matter what you measure, the answer is still “no.”<\/p>\n Violin training sure strengthened some neural circuits. But that additional strength doesn’t get “repurposed for ‘higher’ cognitive function.”<\/p>\n If I want my students to learn math, I should teach them math<\/em>.<\/p>\n If you watch The West Wing<\/em>, you know that President Bartlet is smarter than everyone else because he won a Nobel Prize, and he plays chess frequently<\/em>. He says things like “rook takes queen in five.” And then Leo nods appreciatively.<\/p>\n So smart.<\/p>\n It might be true that being smart makes you better at chess. (Although, Anders Ericsson says “no.”<\/a>)<\/p>\n Is it true that playing chess makes you smarter<\/em>? If we want our students to learn math and reading and science, should we teach them more chess? Would some neural circuitry get repurposed?<\/p>\nChess and Intelligence<\/h2>\n