DATE: Thursday, June 26, 1997               TAG: 9706260395

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   83 lines

ARTS, MUSIC CAN HELP FINE-TUNE A CHILD'S LEARNING, ADVOCATES SAY

Albert Einstein played the violin.

A study shows that 80 percent of practicing physicians in the United States also were musicians.

Underachieving third-grade students in Rhode Island recently saw their math scores jump 77 percent after they began taking music classes, compared to an increase of a little more than 20 percent for students who received remedial math instruction.

Coincidences? A growing body of researchers don't think so.

Neither does Kathleen Gaffney, a stage, TV and movie actress, playwright, director and arts educator. She used the examples Wednesday to illustrate a talk on the ``multiple intelligences'' that all people - including children - have and need to develop. She referred to Dr. Howard Gardner's 1983 book, ``Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.''

Gaffney also talked about how developing, say, one's musical intelligence helps one's logical or mathematical intelligence. That's why she believes it's important - necessary - to integrate fine and performing arts into everyday school lessons. The arts help children learn the best they can and provide aesthetic benefits.

Gaffney spoke at the opening of a two-day conference on innovation in education, using the arts.

More than 100 teachers from across Virginia met at Christopher Newport University to learn more about the effects that music and art have on academic achievement, to pick up tips on applying for grants to pay for increased classroom instruction in the arts, and to collaborate on lesson plans incorporating the arts.

The conference, sponsored by Young Audiences of Virginia - a Norfolk nonprofit, performing arts educational outfit - Christopher Newport University and state and local education groups, comes at time when education standards are changing in Virginia and elsewhere with greater emphasis on core academic subjects.

Critics - many of them arts educators - complain that the arts are being shut out because increased academic requirements leave less room for electives such as band or ceramics.

Tighter budgets in many public school systems can force arts classes to take back seats to English, math, science and history classes, said Luci Talbot Cochran, associate director of Young Audiences.

``The arts are basic to a child's education and must be an integral part of the curriculum at all levels,'' Cochran said.

Richard T. La Pointe, the state superintendent of public instruction, told conference attendees that, even with changes in Virginia's school standards, ``I'm pleased to say the arts are being protected'' through sufficient time left for electives.

Gaffney called the arts in schools necessary.

She told how she joined the fight for arts education after her daughter, now 14, overcame severe autism as a toddler through music and art therapy. A strummed autoharp elicited the girl's first voluntary reaction in two years, and drawing later led her to make sounds and regain her speech.

``Music gave my daughter back to me,'' Gaffney said. ``The arts absolutely heal.''

In the middle of today's technological revolution, employers across the country are crying out for employees who are creative thinkers and problem-solvers - skills the arts nurture, Gaffney said.

``The arts and science are very much alike,'' Gaffney said. Like science, ``the arts try to penetrate the mystery of our existence.''

While all the connections aren't completely understood, experiences like those of the Rhode Island third-graders blossoming in math after the introduction of music classes are ``stunning,'' Gaffney said. ``It's our best news as advocates of the arts.''

Another study showed that listening to Mozart's music for 15 minutes before a test increased scores in visual and spatial reasoning by 15 or more points. ``And that's even if you don't like Mozart,'' Gaffney joked.

Young Audiences' Cochran noted other studies showing that students with four or more years of arts instruction scored almost 60 points higher on parts of the Scholastic Assessment Tests for college entrance.

In an age dominated by visual images - television, advertisements, computer games - students need art classes to better understand what they're seeing and to develop their own world view, Gaffney said.

Some scientists say American children, now less likely to play board games with each other or sit down to daily family meals, are losing the personal skills of understanding and relating to each other, and of self-discipline and imagination.

``Our children have lost the ability to vision,'' Gaffney said. ``Intrapersonal vision is developed through the arts. All the intelligences are developed through the arts.''

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