Children love to play and explore. We believe in capitalizing on this rather than fighting against it.
I have talked to countless adults who dreadfully recount their childhood piano teachers as, “Strict”, “Mean”, “Constantly disappointed with me”, “boring”.
This doesn’t need to be the case. This is why every lesson incorporates some element of play or discovery.
The Learning Benefits Of Games
In addition to making lessons more enjoyable, games actually make learning:
- Faster
- More effective
- Longer Lasting
At any age, being told information isn’t enough to retain it or put it to good use – information needs to prove itself important enough to be stored.
The Science Of Memory
Scientists don’t understand everything about memory, but they have been able to discover quite a bit about how information is received, sorted and retained.
There is a great article about this here, but this is my lingo in layman’s terms to show how it relates to teaching music with games
- Something happens that you are paying attention to.
- The more attention there is, the more likely you will remember an event. The amount of attention you pay often has to do with involved emotion, or perceived relevance.
- Your brain decides whether or not to keep this information.
- If your brain decides to keep it, information is processed, and then linked and compared to other types of similar information.
In other words, we remember things better when we are paying attention and when we have other similar types of information to compare it to.
How Games Help Students Remember
If we look at the above information, we see that games can provide an environment that is extrememly conducive to learning.
Games provide alternative ways of experiencing information
This means more experiences for information given behind the instrument to be linked to and grouped with.
Games Encourage Total Attention
As soon as something is a game, kids want to win. This is an emotional response that increases the likelihood that given information will be retained.
Dedicating time to games is a win for students and parents.
- Students have fun, progress quickly, and develop confidence.
- Parents get to enjoy the benefits of seeing your child love something they are doing
Yu-Kai Chou, who has done a lot of work with the effects games have on learning, really sums it up when he says:
They (games) allow individuals to interact with information, instead of passively absorbing it.
Yu-kai Chou
This is why at P287 we think fun and games are not only fun and games but are essential to the learning process.