Music As A Tool For Learning

Plenty of elementary schools teach music, but how many require students to attend a 45-minute music class every day, to take half-hour violin lessons twice a week, and to practice every night? How many organize the entire educational experience around music? There's a waiting list of more than 600 for a spot in the Conservatory Lab Charter School, an elementary school for mostly low-income Boston youngsters. At a time when some schools are cutting back on performing-arts education, this school has decided that music is the best way to animate the study of seemingly unrelated subjects. Jonathan Rappaport, the school's executive director, describes the organizing principle of the school's curriculum as "learning through music." The goal is not to produce musicians, he says, but rather "to use music as a way of educating kids in a very comprehensive way."

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