Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

SCHOOL LIFE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

C O - C U R R I C U L U M

Arts

Havergal has long provided students with opportunities to develop their talents in the literary and visual arts, drama, music and dance, but at the time of the centennial, there was a deepening understanding of the far-reaching benefits of arts instruction. In 1996, Cilla Kent, a Havergal parent, interviewed Elisabeth Muir, head of the Music department for many years prior to and after Havergal’s centennial. In “A Noted Passion: Music at Havergal,” an article in that year’s Chronicle , Ms. Kent observed that [c]oming from a mid-century British culture in which “schools wanted to show off their music, but considered it a frill subject, not quite up there with academics and sports,” Liz is quietly relishing the results of international studies, which increasingly show that children who are exposed to early music training dramatically improve in spatial reasoning. The mechanism behind the so-called ‘Mozart effect’ remains muddy, but it is quite clear that when children exercise cortical neurons by listening to classical music, they are also strengthening circuits used for math. One prominent U.S. research team has found that “music excites the inherent brain patterns and enhances their use in complex reasoning tasks.” One need only look to Havergal’s classrooms for confirmation of the following statement: “In the arts, mechanical ability and dexterity work hand in hand with creative expression and mental capacity. Developing the manual skills to play an instrument such as the cello or saxophone is essential to performing and interpreting a piece of music. Working with clay, oil paints or papier maché teaches students

Ludemus , 1996 cover.

Sophocles, it is said, claimed that “whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.” It is easy to dismiss such a strong statement as hyperbole, but few these days would not acknowledge its merit. The arts explore what is and what can be.

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