“Play On Philly” is an intensive music education that strengthens students’ executive functions, according to WHYY.org.
This past May the POP Jubilee, an annual concert by the students and alumni of Play On Philly, or POP, showcased what students in pre-K to 12th grade at five different city locations learned in roughly eight hours per week of music practice in the past school year.
The program teaches students passionate about music more than simply learning to play an instrument, says Jessica Zweig, POP’s executive director.
Strengthening children’s executive function, which Zweig describes as the “air traffic controller of your brain” is a central focus.
“It’s this set of cognitive skills that are learned and practiced,” she says. “It’s the skill of being able to hold multiple things in your brain at once and prioritize them” persistently for a long period of time.
Play On Philly students also learn how to share and cooperate with others during their group and ensemble lessons.
These social and emotional skills are key, Zweig says, but teachers and program leaders and administrators understand the core mission: to teach music.
Students in the program come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, Zweig says. Many can count on full family support; others might confront more difficult circumstances. Either way, POP provides a supportive, nurturing, trauma-informed environment, she says.
“Learning an instrument is really hard, and when we put an instrument in the kid’s hand and we say, we’re going to stick with you, not just one time … but year over year over year, day over day, week over week, month over month, we’re saying that we believe in you and that we’re going to stick with you, even though this thing is hard, right? And so we’re also saying to kids who you know, particularly, have had adverse childhood experiences that you know you’re not good at it now, but you’re going to get there,” she explains.
The music education provided by Play On Philly reinforces and strengthens executive function skills, according to West Chester University’s Research on Education and the Arts in Childhood, or REACH, Lab.
In the past decade, the lab found that students in Play On Philly outperform their peers on a number of measures of executive function, says Steven Holochwost, co-director of the REACH lab.
Students in Play On Philly also performed better “on multiple measures of academic achievement in math and English language arts than their peers,” he says.
Researchers think there may be a connection to repetitive practice and discipline of an instrument and inhibitory control — the ability to inhibit a dominant behavioral response and delay gratification. POP students regularly use this skill by practicing their instruments. They work with an ensemble and learn how to be a team player. They also constantly shift their attention from the conductor, to their music, to the rest of the ensemble, another skill that is key to executive functioning, Holochwost says.
Many studies document how the impact of improved executive functions can be long-lasting, he says.
POP students’ experience attests to the benefits of persistence and continuity: Every student who has stuck with POP through 12th grade has graduated high school and attended college.
Holochwost says better executive functions in adults also correlate to career achievement and happiness in relationships.
The next piece of the program’s growth could be expanding engagement with the community and measuring that impact beyond the classroom, says Zweig.
“We’re working right now to put some programming in place to really move some of our family programming forward, which speaks to some of the broader community,” she says. “We’re in four different schools, and I think that, particularly for our K to 8 schools, they really think of themselves as Play On Philly schools…they are a school with music in it, that their kids know how to play music, and they take a lot of pride in that.
Her “dream,” Zweig says, would be to envision a community rallying around a local POP orchestra in the same way that they might cheer on the high school football team.
WHYY.org
