Jacobs School provides violin lessons to Fairview Elementary first-graders

Through a Jacobs School of Music outreach program, all 46 first-graders at Fairview Elementary School aren’t playing tag during recess. They’re playing violin.

With violins provided by anonymous donors, the students take lessons three times a week as part of their school curriculum, said Brenda Brenner, associate professor of music education and program supervisor. Sixty-five violins, worth approximately $15,210, were donated to the Jacobs School for the program.

“It’s very unusual for the kids to have the opportunity to learn this as part of their curriculum,” Brenner said. “The lessons aren’t after school, they’re during the school day. It’s exciting to see their response to doing this and their motivation.”

The three first-grade classes meet twice weekly for group instruction with Brenner and Kasia Bugaj, an assistant instructor. Once more during recess, the students meet in small groups of three to four taught by students from Brenner’s string pedagogy program at the music school.

“Teaching violin is a hands-on endeavor,” Brenner said. “The more people who are there to go around the room, to adjust positions while I’m teaching, is really helpful. It’s a very intensive learning environment.”

Brenner wanted to start the program at Fairview because the school did not have a large enrollment in the music school’s pre-college string academy, which is predominately made up of students from University Elementary School, Rogers-Binford Elementary School and Childs Elementary School.

Because 90 percent of Fairview students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, Brenner wanted to give the students an otherwise unlikely opportunity.

“I was a kid who didn’t have parents going to concerts on a regular basis,” Brenner said. “They wanted to give me opportunities, but they probably would not have been parents at IU signing up for violin lessons. It was the music pullout program in my school system that got me started. I never would have been a musician if I had not benefited from that kind of program.”

The program’s curriculum was built around math and language arts standards for Indiana first-graders with the intention that the violin classes could help the students meet those standards, Brenner said.

“It’s exciting that our students are getting the experience of playing the violin,” said Karen Adams, principal of Fairview, “but it’s also exciting because the other standards we need to focus on are incorporated into the program too.”

Through the lessons, the music school also hopes to contribute to research to help prove the developmental benefits of early music education, said Lisa May, chair of the music education program at the Jacobs School.

May, Brenner and Bugaj will document the positive effects of the classes and study improvement in attendance rates, parental involvement and attitude toward school, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children cognitive test scores and cognitive development. They will then compare the information with a control group at Highland Park Elementary School.

“There’s not a lot of baseline research out there,” May said. “We may be able to prove violin instruction can cause special characteristics like cross body functioning since the students have to use their left and right hands or more acute hearing since they will have to use their ears for pitches. We have no evidence, but with this long-term project, we can show whether violin instruction has significant gains.”

With only four weeks of instruction, some improvements in student behavior and attitude can already be seen.

“From the first time they got the violins, it was like they got a treasure,” said Kathy Heise, music teacher at Fairview. “They are very respectful of the instruments when they hold them. Already I see a lot of behavioral positive effects. Their length of focus has improved, they are excited to come to class and I see them helping one another.”