Confirmed: Musicians really ARE smarter!
Working memory is the capacity to hold onto information even as you are processing it – to consider how it confirms, contradicts, adjusts your previous knowledge. This is essential to effective learning, as is short-term memory. A new meta-study of... Read More →
BOOK: When Grit Isn’t Enough
Grit. It’s a word that has been discussed in education circles for several decades, most recently as a suggested solution for the education gap in the United States. But what if “grit” isn’t enough? Linda Nathan is the first Executive Director of... Read More →
The Most Important Choice You Make
What advice would a neuroscientist give to Sistema program administrators who get stressed out in their work? To teaching artists striving to be more effective with students? To music stand partners? Moran Cerf, who teaches in the Kellogg School of... Read More →
Creative Youth Development – Join the Movement
Creative Youth Development (CYD) is an umbrella term in the U.S. for a variety of education programs and initiatives that share values and practices with El Sistema-inspired programs. A national CYD partnership publishes a free newsletter, and now it... Read More →
How Arts Participation Leads to Civic Engagement
The new U.S. research report Hearts and Minds: The Arts and Civic Engagement (2017, by Nick Rabkin for The Irvine Foundation) finds that arts participation, particularly art-making (more than audience attendance) is strongly related to increased civic engagement. This connection... Read More →
What do young people think and feel? Find out!
What the World’s Young People Think and Feel is reported in the Varkey Foundation’s new study: Generation Z: Global Citizenship Survey of young people born between 1995 and 2001. The report seeks to understand the lives and values of “Generation... Read More →
FEATURE: Developing & Supporting “Executive Function”
The abilities to exercise self-control and stay focused, hold information in mind and work with that information, problem-solve, and flexibly adjust to change or unexpected problems are important for all aspects of life – school, work, health, creativity, and not... Read More →
2016 Literature Review of El Sistema and Sistema-Inspired Programmes
Sistema Global announces the release of a 2016 update to their 2013 Literature Review of El Sistema and Sistema-Inspired Programmes. The report is the first and only broad foundation survey of the global Sistema field, and includes new research surveys... Read More →
Kudos to Aotearoa’s children and their aiga/whānau!
The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage commissioned a research study of Sistema Aotearoa in Auckland. The findings affirm that students in the program advance beyond their peers in academic achievement, social development, and community identity. The report also... Read More →
Big Noise’s Impact: Sistema’s Scotland Research Collaboration Webinar
In May 2015, Sistema Scotland presented the research from a partnership led by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and including Education Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University, and Audit Scotland, with data collected over the past two years from the first... Read More →