Thoughtful Thursday: Plato

I'm currently pretty brain fogged in, getting ready for work about 45 later than usual, and somehow managing to lose every single thing about 2 seconds after I put it down, but I'm also here, ready to write something for the blog. I decided that I need to get my brain in gear, so I went searching for a quotation that is directly important to me as a music therapist. Plato to the rescue!!

"I would teach children music, physicas and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning." - Plato

When I was in graduate school, learning about music philosophy, it struck me that music was recognized by so many of the great learners and teachers of the field. Music seemed to be popping up in almost every philosopher's writings as something that was inherently important to the act of being human. Being a musician myself and someone dedicated to using music with those who feel that it is not for them, I found these writings interesting and very important to me.

Plato seems to focus on patterns in this short quotation, illustrating that music can help learners start to perceive patterns in other areas of life. I think this is true, especially from within the music experience - we become entrained to an external stimulus as evidenced by observable actions in our bodies, and we can start to find similarities and differences in other things in the environment. Often, the music forms a background to the other stimuli present. It is not always easy to see someone who is a bit off with their movements until you coordinate with a set pattern. Then, it becomes easier to see when movements do not conform to the expectation. 

Plato's quotation also includes a plea for learning about the natural sciences and for the development of critical thinking skills. For me, the most important part of this (after learning about and through music, of course), is critical thinking (which is how I am defining philosophy from the quote above). Critical thinking is something which I find to be in short supply these days. I also believe that development of critical thinking has to be part of educational experiences from the very beginning of a child's career, and I also feel that there is an entire generation of people in the United States who missed out on learning how to solve problems. (That's a political rant for another time, folks.)

So, how to start to study critical thinking?

I use the scientific method. You know? Gather information, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, gather data. Interpret data, revise the hypothesis and repeat as needed until exhausted (because we all know that learning never ends!). My clients have a diagnosis of an intellectual or developmental disability, but that does not mean that they are unable to complete critical thinking tasks - it just means that I might present them with the information a bit differently.

So, how does music promote critical thinking?

In so many ways. (That's the easy, cop-out answer!) There are opportunities for thinking when looking at theory, at lyric development, during lyric analysis, during ensemble playing, during songwriting, during structured movement, during unstructured movement, during improvisation, while playing instruments and singing, and the list goes on and on. If you are interested in more specific examples, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll tell you more and more about this...

I think my brain fog is lifting as this idea is taking hold and making me think a bit about how I actually can bring this idea more into the forefront of my music therapy program and how I can share this with my interns (Hello, intern!) in a way that strengthens their critical thinking skill development and then has a positive benefit for my clients. We'll see.

Happy Thursday, all.