Research Assessment #6

Reagan Rasmussen

ISM: Music Education

24 October 2018

Wolpert-Gawron, Heather. “Brains, Brains, Brains! How the Mind of a Middle Schooler

Works.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 24 Oct. 2013,

www.edutopia.org/blog/how-middle-schooler-mind-works-brains-part-one-heather-

wolpert-gawron.

Assessment:

This article doesn’t focus on music education like my past articles have, but instead

discusses the mind of a middle schooler and the main things teachers should do to get

information to stick in their ever-changing minds. The author cites research of education studies

done by Judy Willis about how “intelligence is not gifted at birth” (Wolpert-Gawron, 3) and

how, if teachers do their job correctly, then students can feel the power of learning things for

themselves. Wolpert-Gawron also talks about how everything in the life of a middle schooler is

changing, so to have something they can control, such as their learning, is extremely important in

their development as students and people. And, the best way for students to store what they are

learning in long-term memory and really connect to it, is for teachers to somehow relate it to the

lives of their students. This is because, with everything changing in the lives of these tweens, the

only thing they can consistently focus on is themselves, so if their learning connects to them on

some level, it impacts them more. All of these things that this article talked about can be applied

to my area of study because in the future, I will be trying to cater my teaching to middle school

students. Through continuing to learn about the brain of middle schoolers and how much change
their going through, I could teach them more effectively and allow them to really process and

store everything that they need to know. Because music is cumulative, students have to

remember and practice the fundamentals they learn at the beginning throughout their whole life

as a musician. However, I would like to know how much this information matters in the

everyday work of music educators. How much do middle school band directors have to

consciously think about relating music back to the lives and talents of individual students? And

do directors have to deal with parents that have no clue how to manage their own middle school-

age students? Is student behavior usually a big issue, and how does a music educator deal with

this? Despite the possible difficulty of teaching this specific age group, I’m encouraged to further

my work on my ISM topic. This is because I would be able to influence the development of

students with malleable minds, and help them to love music during a time when it can most

easily become a part of who they are as they continue to grow. Being a music educator for

middle school age students would allow me to create a base platform for them doing music for

the rest of their lives. Students would be just mature enough to have respect for instruments and

quality pieces of music, but still be young enough to not really know who they are as people, so

that they can decide if they want band to a part of that identity or not.