| Music and Brain Function |
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"Was Hänschen nicht lernt, lernt Hans nicht mehr!“ - an old German saying that claims: whatever isn’t learnt in childhood, won't be learnt as in the adult years either. This ancient piece of wisdom has now been proven to be true by brain science institutes in Europe and the United States. An example to illustrate this fact are sports: if an athlete doesn't begins before the age of 18 to develop his skills in any particular discipline such as running or swimming, he will need a very long training period, and yet he will not be able to achieve outstanding results. Children who learn but one language before they reach the age of four will later struggle in truly mastering another language to perfection. Not only will they learn at a considerably slower speed, but also will their true origin always be recognizable from their accents. In some countries it is actually illegal to teach children before they reach first grade. These laws were brought into existence with the noble intention of offering them a happy childhood. This can be easily proven wrong by basing on brain science, and on plain common sense: A person is happy if his desires and wishes are being fulfilled and granted, no matter whether these consist in being active or in being passive. Have you ever seen a child that merely sits still, that doesn't want to move, that isn't interested in his environment and in learning more about this world? Children of this kind do not exist! Whoever isn't able to grasp and understand this fact is failing to see the very essence of children's education. The attitude that children will be happiest if they don't have to learn anything before they reach the age of six leads to a disastrous situation in their later lifetime: it has been proven that these children will then see their whole scholastic education as a torture, all the way from first grade until graduation. Our increasingly globalised world demands that children be able to learn well and achieve progress quickly. But statistics clearly show that the above mentioned "happy" children always fall behind their peers in school, even if they learn diligently and invest a great amount of time. A happy person is someone who is allowed to drink when he's thirsty, to eat when he's hungry and to study and learn when he's curious. This is not just a "good theory" - this is a plain fact that even small children are able to grasp and understand. Why would anybody resist this fact? Thus one should not think that "children must not be asked to learn", so that it will make them happy; but rather, "children must be taught correctly, in a simple and efficient manner, so that their desires, tendencies and individual needs will be met". Many adolescents who have an aversion to learning are due to being taught in boring and inefficient ways for a long time. They are not rebellious or bad young people – they become rebellious because of unintelligent education. The right educational method is one that suits the specific brain functions of a child - and based on genetics, tendencies and inheritance these are different in every person. For this reason, teaching children is not easy - not only should one have the knowledge about brain functions and its development, it is necessary to recognize and notice what the specific needs of each child is. The functions of our cerebrum are far more complicated and complex than the functions of the cerebellum, since the cerebrum consists of the left and the right brains: the functions of these two halves are not only different from each other, they're in fact directly opposite to each other. It is due to this that we are capable of becoming smart and flexible. When our eyes, ears, hands or legs only function on one side, our life becomes one constant struggle - not to mention the difficulties which arise if our brain works only on one side! Not only do the left and right brains have different tasks - the functions of both sides are indeed different to the point of being opposite to each other! Our left brain works in a manner which can be compared to a snail: it progresses in extreme detail and with extreme care, and has to learn "from the details to the broader picture", step by step - if only one step is being left out, progress is not possible anymore. The right brain, however, functions rather like a bird: first it captures the bigger picture, the whole structure, and only afterwards does it bother about details. This is usually done without any logical process, jumping from one thing to another. Nobody would teach a baby what eyes, nose, mouth and ears are first, before explaining to him that the conjunction of those body parts form the face of his Mum! Ever since the 16th century, the Western world has been making tremendous progress in the area of the left brain, whereas Asia continued to live in its traditional ways, until colonisation from the West changed this fact. This is especially so in the case of China, a country with a history comprising thousands of years, a dynasty which had invented fireworks, paper, the compass and silk clothes long before the West, missed out on thousand years of historical developments. Until finally colonizing with a league of eight countries as well as Russia and Japan. In the history of the West, many people such as Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein have become famous logical thinkers in the fields of physics, mathematics and other sciences. To try to add even a single Chinese name to this list, and you will find this a rather difficult challenge. We cannot deny that the left brain is the strong side of the Western world! In a nutshell, we can therefore say that the left brain is what provides us with our logical intelligence. If there is, however, a deficit in the field of the right brain, a person can lack in social and emotional intelligence, which in turn may lead to a selfish attitude, to only striving after one's own personal advantage. In turn, deficits in the field of the left brain may lead to people having a deficiency in skill and intelligence as well as having a slower thought process - and eventually, getting colonized. The effects of the different and complex brain functions can be seen in our daily lives. The left brain is responsible for mathematics, physics, chemistry, Western languages and vast areas in the field of logics, whereas the right brain "takes pictures", it "records" any kind of data, is responsible for the memory, Asian languages as well as the fine arts and music. Depending on how well those two parts of the brain are developed in any particular family member, the family will have more or less pleasant experiences. A strong right brain is the reason, for example, when someone has a "good heart" and if he can "feel" the needs of others - but a strong left brain is necessary in order to analyse a situation and to find a decent solution, which will meet these specific needs of others. This is particularly true in the case of disagreements and arguments about views, beliefs, goals, interpersonal relationships and emotions, harmony, etc. Back to the topic of education! When children want to play and learn music, this is an indicator that their right brain is already starting to develop. In addition, if they learn to enjoy and to listen to music, as well as to imitate the teacher's way of playing, without being able to read notes or to learn songs independently, the right brain will be developed even further. As a result the imbalance between the two halves will grow even bigger. This is, of course, a completely natural process - in most cases, infants and small children develop their right brain first, and only afterwards does the left brain start functioning (only in the case of prodigy children does the left brain develop at a very early age). If this imbalance does, however, persist over a period of several years, the right brain will become too dominant, and the left brain tends to become lazy and dormant - it will not want to learn and simply will have difficulties functioning. We can compare this to our right and left hands - the stronger and the more skilful our right hand is, the less we will use the left hand - which in turn will become more and more awkward. Fortunately, it is more than sufficient for most people to be very skilful with the right hand only, in order to be able to perform well in their work field. However, If we can only use our right leg, for example, we will face tremendous difficulties! Above I explained why we need to balance the two halves of the brain in order to perform well in any given task. Yet the problems which arise for children in case of an unbalanced brain are even greater, because they will have to learn and absorb a great variety of different subjects, information and skills. If a child learns addition, for example, after already having developed the right brain to the point of dominance through music lessons, this child will unconsciously also use only the right brain in order to learn mathematics. This means it will approach any mathematical problem with the aid of his memory rather than with logical thinking. Example: this child will memorize 1+2 = 3, yet then be unable to answer the question 2+1 = ? - the child will assume he needs to memorize this task separately and anew. This is the reason why many children still do obtain good marks in grade school, but fall behind in secondary school or college: it is simply impossible to handle mathematics and the other subjects that are based on logics by mere memorisation when those subjects grow increasingly complex. This is a very simple secret: if the left brain doesn't work, we have to memorize all additions from 1 up to 1,000 or even up to 1,000,000 bit by bit, one by one - because only the left brain enables us to recognize systematic interrelations and to derive enough understanding form one or two examples in order to apply this knowledge to the whole task or system, without having to memorize everything step by step. Yet logic alone without memory will not enable us to be effective either. Therefore, neither the left nor the right brain functioning alone will make any child or adult happy. In fact, there is a need to balance between the two halves, and only those using both the functions of the left and the right brains when learning, i.e. "Networked Thinking" will be able to achieve this balance in his youth, without having to learn diligently and for a long period of time. Computers in brain science institutes have been able to prove that our brain is blessed with a hormone called beta-endorphin, which keeps us healthy, content and happy. This hormone is being produced whenever we set a goal and try to attain it - this is especially the case if this goal consists in helping other people. In order for these processes to happen, both hemispheres of the brain have to be in balance. A colony is never truly content and happy, the colonised people needs a goal of its own, in order to make progress. Both the left and the right brains have to work and, in addition to this, they have to cooperate; Westerners and Asians will have to learn from each other, in order to thus develop this kind of sufficiently balanced brain functions. The most important aspect of this is to give infants and small children the opportunity to learn according to their desires and needs; as well as being able to achieve these goals in a fun and relaxed way. Read on to see examples of how we attain such a balance of the brain functions? |