Experts say learning a second language is easier for young children. That holds true even if the new language is music. One school in Richmond has taken that to heart.
At St. Andrew's Schooleven the kindergarteners learn to play an instrument.
The private elementary school in Richmond serves low-income students who all get a full scholarship. Their mission of a well rounded education includes music, but not your average recorder lessons. Instead all one hundred students learn the violin - from kindergarten to fifth grade.
Fifth-grader Madison is 11. She says playing music challenges her in a good way.
“It’s like I’m having a party in my brain and it kind of makes me feel, makes me feel excited,” she says.
10-year-old Imani agrees.
“It’s a weird way to say it but because of how you start learning the violin it gets easier, but still hard at the same time,” Imani says. “And it’s also fun hearing your music.”
Why the violin? One practical reason is that they come small enough for five-year-old hands.
“Violins - and strings in general - the sounds that you can create are so close to the human voice and that’s something that can really strike a chord,” says music teacher Madison Erskine. Erskine began playing cello when she was four.
The St. Andrews program was founded in 2013 by Amanda Ellerbe. Ellerbe says the violin packs a punch in terms of a musical education.
“Movement, notation, connecting music to other other art forms,” she lists.
Ellerbe based the program off El Sistema, a now global movement that began in Venezuela in the 1970’s - when one man used music education to connect with at-risk youth. Ellerbe says music is a clear way for students at St. Andrew's to realize that despite systemic inequality, if they work hard they can change their lives.
She recalls watching one student who struggled with the instrument at first.
“She worked so hard. And I remember watching her face once, she closed her eyes while she was playing this slow song,” Ellerbe recalls. “And she started smiling like she could hear her own improvement. And she thought it was beautiful.”
When the program began, they had just eight violins for the entire school. Today, thanks to donations, there are plenty of instruments to go around. Each student gets two 30 minute lessons a week, and then they get to perform at local churches and music festivals.
Ahmad, who is in the fourth grade, played during the Mozart Festival in Richmond last year.
“I was really nervous cause I was standing in front of,what to me was a lot of people, but I just kept on going and I did actually very fine,” he says, adding that it felt great.
The final element of the music program at St. Andrews is teamwork. The young musicians always play together and aren’t expected to practice at home alone.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
