Música y Persona
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The Heart of Mary School has always considered music as a basic training element of first class for auditory and intellectual development, which also facilitates the assimilation of languages or logical-mathematical thinking. But above all, we believe that Music is vital for the development of the person, his internalisation, creativity, aesthetic sensibility or ability to improve both individual and collaboratively.
With this belief, The Heart of Mary School institution has launched MÚSICA Y PERSONA, a special project that has already become a benchmark of educational innovation, resulting in the creation of an association to promote its educational policy.
In The Heart of Mary School, through Música y Persona, children start playing the violin at the age of 3, following its practice, outside of school hours in well-equipped and practical facilities empowered to that end and with their parents’ help.
Involving the families in the activity also implies that the family-school tie that is so important for the educational project is kept and broadened.
In Primary Education, Música y Persona is included in the curriculum and that is the reason why the number of compulsory hours devoting to playing the violin instrument is increased. The educational stage turns into a distinguished and qualified proposal, which makes The Heart of Mary School a single and singular centre that offers an important space for violin learning during official school hours in the Primary school project.
So, to encourage the involvement of families, parents and grandparents, Música y Persona purpose is also the creation of choirs and musical groups, the implementation of dramatization and concerts and the collaboration with other entities.
In this section, the Association will communicate the activities to be carried out in the Heart of Mary School.
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A group of keen teachers and parents belong to our team, all of them linked to The Heart of Mary School in Palencia, with The Sister María Dolores Almansa as responsible and designer of the project.
We want those teachers who take part in the Música y Persona project to feel it in full, identify and experience themselves with it to cope with the fantastic and sensitive task of education.
Doing it, in this case via music, not only implies some technical and musical training but also a responsible commitment to the values defended by the Association, whose reason for being is the second part of its name: The Person.
The Association works to ensure that both employees and staff have the necessary training on the Project and the principles that include it.
The centre, which undertook the project and has been implementing it since 2014, has several individual booths for playing the violin, music rooms equipped with the necessary elements for enjoyment and the practice of several musical disciplines, an assembly hall and all the necessary structures to carry out the Association activities.
The Primary students also count on their own facilities because musical teaching is included in the centre curriculum, which makes the number of compulsory hours increase.
“A project …A violin … So that’s how it all began. Today, brought together by music, developing as persons, together we learn that the effort and perseverance are the direct path to the inner balance and intellectual development”.
“I have met other families through the “Música y Persona” project and the families help each other”.
“Music has liven up our home environment and has helped me to listen to”.
““I learnt to play an instrument although I had thought I would never do it”. If I study, I will achieve other things”.
In Música y Persona, we believe that the violin is one of the most complete instruments for musical training and promoting a comprehensive education. Its conditions and difficulty in application bring up an important challenge to the children and help to work on different values such as constancy and effort. It also fosters the development of fine motor skills, allows you to deepen in your personal world through listening and communication of emotions and it is an excellent unifying force because it requires the families’ involvement in early ages and often becomes an expression of collective possibilities that require a collaborative framework like orchestral performance.
“The brain does not distinguish between music and language, especially in new-born brains. Infants do not know what “milk” or “drink” mean, but they understand the language of music. We learn to speak by listening to the musical sounds of language. That is the reason why it is so important they listen to music, because we are innately musical creatures from the depths of our nature.
Children whose musical language is stimulated learn language process and its nuances, syntax and listening ability quickly, and they suffer less dyslexia problems. Singing or music making is so beneficial for them.” (Stefan Koelsch).
The Heart of Mary School has become an accredited centre for Trinity College London, a prestigious international entity that allows the violin students be tested to guarantee their learning process and be externally assessed by a world-wide known organism that enjoys native qualified teachers and the students obtain official certificates, as well.
In Música y Persona, we consider the parents as the main and fundamental part in their children’s educational process. That is reason why we understand the continuous communication between the family and school as unwavering. With the implementation of the musical project, we have achieved to increase so necessary relationship between the educators and parents by the co-participation in the association activities. The essential involvement of families in teaching violin handling at an early age has encouraged a greater proximity of parents to classrooms and, allowing this way closer relationships. Besides, our educational process has roused passion for music in some families, deriving in their interest in artistic training and their participation in musical groups and choirs that are promoted by our Association.
Finally, the relationship between families and educators, enriched thanks to Música y Persona, has given rise to the School for Parents’ creation as a training and on-going-support classroom for the entire education community. With that in mind and the scope where the Association develops its activities, fortnightly meetings are held during the course so that families can receive some guidance and share experiences and concerns with other parents and educators.
Musical groups and choirs as well as musical theatres are for Música y Persona one of the most integrative and beneficial educational formulas because they allow going deeper into personal potentialities and harness them to collective service. They are a perfect choice for people having artistic concerns that do not have professional knowledge in the field.
In addition to the musical component, there is a very important and necessary social aspect linked to life of those groups. By sharing this passion among the different people who fill the structure of the choral group, different close links are born at all levels. Feeling the wonderful experience of singing with others, living the emotion roused by this activity with them creates a set of really valuable attachments.
Other benefit lies in the chance to take part in the entire Education Community, mainly families. Parents, grandparents and grandchildren may have the occasion to share their passion for music and in such a way, promoting the intergenerational meeting and a permanent dialogue between the families and the school.
“When we make music, we experience and activate all those social functions together again, that is, we find out what the other wants, tries or believes without him explicitly telling us.
What comes out of this is that we like each other better than we did before and we are more united, we rely on the confidence in reciprocal care and the confidence that opportunities to engage with the others will also emerge in the future”. (Stefan Koelsch).
Music therapy can be applied to a wide range of social settings to improve the quality of life of people from before birth to the end of life.
The Music and Person project seeks to bring Music Therapy not only to all children who need paying special attention to their school life but also to grandparents in the Geriatrics area and as a therapeutic tool because, in spite of some possible constraints, music is able to stimulate certain skills.
We believe that all kinds of artistic manifestations can contribute to our students’ criteria of beauty and balance, aesthetic sensitivity and enjoyment. That is the reason why we try to show the work of our Violinists and our Groups of Music and Choirs implementing all kinds of performances and musicals to assess the work carried out. In other words, our goal is to make children conscious of social commitment by allocating collection of these events to supportive causes.
To further encourage inter-generational and personal relationship is also among our social and personal aims, betting on team work and both involving in performance creation and putting them on display to elderly people relating to our background, grandparents and retirees. They can provide the children with some experience and contribute to magnify the event.
Nor did we forget our commitment to environmental education, so we teach children to work on creating stages and wardrobe drawn from recycled material, taking advantage of staging to excite imagination and being environmentally-friendly in an active and constructive way.
“We are innately musical creatures from the depths of our nature” (Stefan Koelsch).
We think that cultural and artistic exchange and the participation of our students in musical projects different to those offered in the Association framework can particularly benefit the children. It is for that reason that we resolve ourselves to carry out this type of activities.
“Not only is music part of our culture but also it is part of our nature and that is why we all have a talent for music. It is not a question of having more or less musical skills but we consider it as a connecting link to the others” (Jordi A. Jauset).
Access to practical information of Music and Person: