WSMA board perspective
Well-Rounded Education Influences Wellbeing Luke Francois, WSMA Board Member
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Recently I read a book that offered five elements of wellbeing that constitute a life that matters. These five elements are:
• How you occupy your time or simply liking what you do every day: or Career Wellbeing.
• Having strong relationships and love in your life: or Social Wellbeing.
• Effectively managing your economic life: or Financial Wellbeing.
• Having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis: or Physical Wellbeing.
• A sense of engagement you have with the area where you live: or Community Wellbeing.
The five elements represent five broad cat- egories that are essential to most people’s wellbeing. Today I offer the sixth part of wellbeing: Art and Music.
Research conducted specifically in music as it relates to wellbeing is well docu- mented. The University of Sheffield in the UK is conducting studies that look at ways music contributes to everyday life as well as for people with extraordinary challenges in their life. Research questions currently posed include:
• Is music good for my memory? • Can music help me sleep?
• In what ways can music support care for individuals living with dementia?
• How can practice environments be optimized for musicians?
• How can we support musicians living with depression?
• In what ways does musical practice support the development of young children from deprived communities?
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Additionally, other areas of study include music interventions to treat dementia care, sleeping disorders for insomnia, and how music impacts MRI scanning of cancer and cardiac patients. As an example, roughly 6 percent of all people have insomnia, according to the National Institutes of Health. To combat insomnia, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index reports 59 percent of a population sampled in- dicated that they use music regularly to help them sleep. This breakthrough de- velopment of a non-drug based treatment is brilliant to address insomnia through music and constitutes a low-cost portable and adaptable remedy to insomnia.
The University of Lincoln recently is furthering insomnia research by, “car- rying out a large-scale Internet survey on music and sleep, to determine how people are currently using music when they encounter sleep difficulties in their day-to-day life. Using the results of this survey we will then carry out an informed, long-term ‘music for sleep’ intervention study in people’s homes using new sleep monitoring technologies.” To enhance the research results of music and insomnia you can partake in the research study by spending 15 minutes and answering a few questions at https://musicpsych.qualtrics. com/SE/?SID=SV_3XnfqJelYvMeVWl.
Additional research surrounding wellbe- ing and music is helping every day chal- lenges such as using our memory more efficiently and how to best address pres- sures of young musicians preparing for future careers. If reading research is not of interest, many TED talks speak to topics of music and memory to include: The Music of Memory by Victoria Williamson, Music on the Brain by Professor Jessica, or Professor Ani Patel talking about Music and the Mind.
Knowledge about research surrounding music and the mind makes for a natural
“Additional research surrounding wellbeing and music is helping every day challenges such as using our memory more efficiently…”
link for art and music inclusion into the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as part of a well-rounded education (previ- ously known as “Core Academic Sub- jects”). Recognizing music and the arts is unprecedented and helps to advance the cause of music in the school curriculum. Specifically, schools can use Title I funds to grant better access to music and the arts. Administrators can make a stronger argument for the importance of protecting student’s class time to include art and mu- sic. Government can open up new federal grant opportunities for purposes of deploy- ing art and music to the underrepresented, disadvantaged or minority students.
A New Year resolution must include a well-balanced music and art education that creates additional wellbeing in our students and adults.
References:
Gallup, I. (2010). The Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing.
Gallup.com
“Music and Wellbeing.” (2015). Retrieved 31 October 2016, from http://
musicwellbeing.group.shef.ac.uk/.
Luke Francois is superintendent for Mineral Point Schools. Email:
luke.francois@
mp.k12.wi.us
January 2017
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