The contributions of musical activities to the formation of the student in the 5th year of Elementary School

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

OLIVEIRA, Marcus Mustafa de ^[1]

OLIVEIRA, Marcus Mustafa de. The contributions of musical activities to the formation of the student in the 5th year of Elementary School. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year 04, Ed. 07, Vol. 07, p. 130-141. July 2019. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/education/musical-activities ‎

ABSTRACT

This research work aims to show the contributions of musical activities to the construction of significant knowledge in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Municipal School Solange Nascimento, Manaus – Amazonas. For this understanding, the main objective was to investigate how musical activities can help in the applicability of interdisciplinarity and in the teaching and learning process of students. The methodologies used were a qualitative-quantitative approach, field research and surveys, and the techniques used were a semi-structured questionnaire. A group of 35 students were surveyed about the benefits that musical activities provide in the teaching-learning process. The study found that, of the students involved in musical activities, 68% improve their grades in all subjects, as well as their classroom behaviors. The study also found that 70% of students improved their cognitive perception and psychomotor skills through musical activities. Currently, there are two works at the school involving musical activities, offered to students in an interdisciplinary and optional way.

Keywords: Learning, Interdisciplinarity, Artistic activities.

1. INTRODUCTION

Artistic activities in Elementary School, especially Music Education, have made it possible, through the experience of aesthetic, sound, visual, plastic and gestural dimensions, to develop cognitive capacity, critical awareness of human values ​​in students and provide a reflective knowledge as citizens. Art has been treated, in most Brazilian schools, as a support for the other subjects that make up the curricular framework, a fact that shows its interdisciplinary character as an area of ​​human knowledge.

According to Graciano (2009, p. 2), “Artistic languages, especially music, are one of the most accessible and present in students’ daily lives”. In this way, the school has a very important role in the student’s contact with this type of cultural manifestation, since Art, according to Duarte (1991), has three important dimensions for the student’s educational formation: the sociocultural one, which points to the artistic as a cause of the preservation of the culture of a certain social group at a certain time; the curriculum-school dimension, in which art as a specific area leads the student to establish connections with other subjects in the curriculum; and the psychological dimension, which observes art education as a promoter of thinking capable of making the individual able to relate to others, taking into account a greater affectivity, in addition to the development of creativity. Thus, there are a number of relevant aspects that lead to identifying Art in education, especially musical activities as an issue to be further discussed in the school community.

In this perspective, we seek to analyze the problem of the research in question: Do the practices of musical activities in the 5th year of Elementary School at Solange Nascimento school promote an improvement in the quality of teaching and learning of students?

From this analysis, some guiding questions are faced in the development of the study: What is the practices of musical activities in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Solange Nascimento school? How have these musical activity practices provided benefits in student learning? How is the practice of musical activities at the Solange Nascimento school?

In this sense, the hypotheses that guided the research were formulated in the following terms: The practices of musical activities as a means to promote the quality of teaching of students in the 5th year of the Solange Nascimento school;

The practices of musical activities as a support in the teaching-learning process of students at the Solange Nascimento school;

It is believed that the theoretical effort to try to answer these questions is justified insofar as the research results can eventually contribute to a critical reflection on the way in which the musical activities offered at the Solange Nascimento school, in fact, have helped to improve the quality of student teaching.

From this perspective, the main objective of the research is: To analyze how the process of musical activities practices takes place in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Solange Nascimento school.

The more specific objectives are: To investigate the practices of musical activities in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Solange Nascimento school; identify the musical activities offered by the school to 5th grade students; and describe how musical activities are practiced in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Solange Nascimento school.

We understand that the study of musical activities allows us to examine all aspects of the contribution of Art in the student’s teaching-learning process. Therefore, this research may help to understand the benefits that musical activities provide to students, which confirms its relevance. Thus, the main contributions of this study can be listed:

a) Provide a diagnosis of the contributions of musical activities in the teaching-learning process of the 5th year students of the Solange Nascimento Municipal School, in the city of Manaus, AM, which will open paths for the development of future analyzes on the benefits that the activities musicals provide the school community, also contributing to the deepening of scientific knowledge about, mainly, the artistic activities offered in public schools in Manaus;

b) And, finally, to serve as a source of reference and scientific knowledge for other researchers and scientific institutions on the importance of musical activities as a teaching-learning tool for the school community.

2. THEORETICAL REFERENCE

In Brazil, the Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education – LDB[2] No. 9,394/96 in Article 26, item 2, establishes the obligation of Teaching Art in Basic Education, which comprises Early Childhood Education, Elementary School and High School , legitimizing Art as a Curricular Area. The National Curricular Parameters – PCN[3], for the initial grades of Elementary School, volume 06, related to the Art Curriculum area, point to education in Art as a way to promote the development of artistic thinking, in addition to providing, to many individuals, an affective relationship with the environment in which they live. The (PCN, 1997) also present Art as one of the possibilities of valuing the human being through its different forms of manifestation.

Corroborating this idea, according to Ferraz; Fusari (2001, p.19-22), education through Art is, in fact, an educational and cultural movement that seeks the constitution of a complete, total being, within the molds of idealistic and democratic thinking, valuing the human being’s intellectual, moral and aesthetic aspects, seeks to awaken his individual conscience and harmonized with the social group to which he belongs.

Still emphasizing the subject, Martins; Picosque; Guerra (1998) state that:

A comunicação entre as pessoas e as leituras de mundo não se dão apenas por meio da palavra. Muito do que se sabemos sobre o pensamento e os sentimentos das mais diversas pessoas, povos, países, épocas são conhecimentos que obtivemos única e exclusivamente por meio de suas músicas, teatro, pintura, dança, cinema, etc. (MARTINS; PICOSQUE; GUERRA,1998, P.14).

For Visconti and Biagioni (2002, p. 8), “Music teaching at school promotes students’ access to cultural goods […]”. From this, the importance of the practices of musical activities in the school environment arises. According to these authors, “music is, without a doubt, one of the most valuable forms of expression of humanity” (2002, p. 9).

According to Visconti and Biagioni (2002), working with music in Elementary School allows a variety of ways of perception and sensations of the student in his relationship with the world, through the expressive resources available to his body for communication and knowledge of the world in which he lives.

Art education, in general, considers feelings and values, as well as cognitive skills: creation, reflection as a means of providing the student with a playful interaction through music, from the sensory level, working in this way, their perception, until reaching the level of sensitivity, responsible for the mental improvement of the student. In this way, it is clear that musical activity is of great relevance, as it enables the development of the cerebral cortex, improving the vital intellectual abilities of students.

Corroborating this statement, (JAMES, 1997) points out that research carried out with more than twenty-five thousand (25,000) students over a period of ten years, […] “showed that music improves test results”. Regardless of socioeconomic background; students who participate in music activities score better on standardized tests as well as reading proficiency exams.

Also, from this perspective, the (PCNS, 1997) cite that:

O ser humano que não conhece a arte tem uma experiência de aprendizagem limitada, escapa-lhe a dimensão do sonho, da força comunicativa dos objetos à sua volta, da sonoridade instigante da poesia, das criações musicais, das cores e formas, dos gestos e luzes que buscam o sentido da vida. (PCN,1997, p. 89).

According to Visconti and Biagioni (2002, p. 9), Scientific studies prove that participation in musical activities increases the student’s ability to learn basic mathematics and reading, and students who participate in music programs obtain significantly higher test scores as well such as self-discipline and sensitivity. According to the (PCNs, 1997), “It is necessary to seek and rethink ways that help us to develop a musical education that considers the contemporary world in its cultural characteristics and possibilities, which contributed to the humanization of our students”.

Reinforcing the citation of (PCNs, 1997), the Associação Brasileira de Música (2002, p. 78) assures that, “The importance of music for students to learn to play a musical instrument is a rewarding experience for anyone of any age, but music is especially useful for the development of students in the teaching-learning phase”.

It is observed that musical activities are preponderant factors in stimulating learning. Fonterrada apud Schafer, (1992) cites that:

Abre-te! Abre-te ouvido, para os sons do mundo, abre-te ouvido para os sons existentes, desaparecidos, imaginados, pensados, sonhados, fruídos! Abre-te para os sons originais, da criação do mundo, do início de todas as eras… Para os sons rituais, para os sons míticos, místicos, mágicos. Encantados… Para os sons de hoje e de amanhã. Para os sons da terra, do ar e da água… Para os sons cósmicos, microcósmicos, macrocósmicos… Mas abre-te também para os sons de aqui e de agora, para os sons do cotidiano, da cidade, dos campos, das máquinas, dos animais, do corpo, da voz… Abre-te, ouvido, para os sons da vida… (FONTERRADA apud SCHAFER, 1992, p. 10 -11).

Music is an integral part of human formation. Always interacting with his environment, man conceived and made various instruments, created and practiced different songs, developing an increasingly rich and multiple relationship with musical language. According to Brito (1998, p. 134), “Music is a form of language that has been part of human culture since ancient times. It is a form of expression and communication and takes place through appreciation and music making”.

It is observed that artistic activities are not only practices that stimulate teaching and learning, but also help in other areas of knowledge such as Portuguese, Mathematics, Geography, Science, History, among others, through interdisciplinarity.

3. MATERIAL AND METHODS

The methodologies used were a qualitative-quantitative approach, field research and surveys. The option for this methodology was due to the fact that it explained a problem from references already published on the subject, according to Gil (2006, p. 65). Based on the surveys proposed by Gil (2006, p. 70), “direct knowledge of reality; quantification of data, through statistical analysis and field research”, Gil (2006, p. 128). Data were collected through questionnaires, applied to students from the Solange Nascimento Municipal School of the Municipal Education Network of Manaus, from July to December 2016, based on the benefits that the musical activities proposed by the teacher provided to the students of the 5th year of the Elementary School.

3.1 UNIVERSE AND SAMPLE

Table 1. Investigated population and sampling index

Source: Solange Nascimento Municipal School (2016).

As shown in Table 1, the number of students investigated represents 31.25% of a universe of 112 students in the 5th year of Elementary School at the Solange Nascimento Municipal School.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the quantitative data referring to the constituted corpus and the qualitative interpretations. We start with the analysis of student profile data and then we deal with the data collected based on the proposed objectives.

4.1 STUDENT DATA INVESTIGATED

Table 1. Profile of the investigated students of the 5th year of Elementary School

Source: Solange Nascimento Municipal School (2016).

As can be seen in table 1, in relation to the gender of the researched group, there is a predominance of males with 54.28%, while female students represent 45.72%. In terms of frequency, of the 35 students, 98% are regularly attending classes and the dropout rate is only 2%. The average time of study of students is 7 years, counted from the beginning of Early Childhood Education, and the age group is from 10 to 12 years old.

4.2 ANALYSIS OF DATA COLLECTED BASED ON THE OBJECTIVES

4.2.1 THE PROCESS OF PRACTICES OF MUSICAL ACTIVITIES IN THE 5TH YEAR OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

In the process of building the practices of musical activities, three aspects were addressed by the teacher:

a) Musical appreciation – Feeling and perceiving, which are forms of appreciation and appropriation of artistic creations. It was developed through the visualization and hearing of experiences already made and compositions created by different artists using alternative materials, in order to awaken aesthetic and artistic sensitivity. The creative use of alternative materials for musical performance, video analysis and CD listening were discussed and studied during the classes.

b) Musical performance – Individual and group musical practices were carried out, with the objective of developing musicality with the chosen instruments (flutes), forming musical concepts through the acquisition of skills with the handling of the sound created with the wind instrument. The qualities of the sound were worked on: pitch, duration, intensity and timbre, mentioned according to the questions during experimentation with the instruments.

c) Musical composition – Process that allowed students to produce artistic work with the instruments, developing their cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills through combinations of sounds, body movements and singing. The students experienced this process individually and in groups, in order to express themselves through music, with musical instruments and singing.

4.2.2 IDENTIFICATION OF MUSICAL ACTIVITIES OFFERED BY THE SCHOOL TO 5TH YEAR STUDENTS

Graph 1. Musical activities

The musical activities identified in Graph 1 are skills that have the purpose, in addition to contributing to the socialization of students and bringing them closer to manifestations of culture, learning music and knowing more about expression through sounds and developing such skills in students. These types of musical activities are provided for in Law No. 11,769, of August 18, 2008, which requires the teaching of this content in Art classes.

The proposed activities develop listening skills (familiarization with different rhythms and styles), perception (of variations in sounds and instrument timbres), body movement (dance and gestures) and experimentation (of instruments, singing, etc.). It provides different experiences for students and is very important for them to understand music as a language endowed with meaning and associated with the culture of each time. By the end of the 5th year, it is important for everyone to learn the differences between bass-high, strong-weak and slow-fast, get to know some instruments, be able to mark the pulse (the unit of time that makes up the beat, the “beat” of the music), know how to sing melodies, be able to read fluently and work with slightly more complex melodies in singing.

4.2.3 DESCRIPTION OF MUSICAL ACTIVITIES PRACTICES IN THE 5TH YEAR OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Musical activities are developed weekly, in two classes of at least half an hour and the class begins with an exercise in listening to quiet music, followed by perception activities and singing and percussion experiences. A musical sequence of variation in pitch and sound intensity in the melodies follows. These musical activities follow a pre-established routine built together and evaluated weekly by the teacher.

The contributions of musical activities in the teaching-learning process, as mentioned by the students, were described, as shown in table 2:

Table 2. The contributions of musical activities in the student’s teaching-learning process

Source: 5th year students at Solange Nascimento school, 2016.

As can be seen in Table 2, there were numerous contributions provided by musical activities to students. Graciano (2009, p. 2) states that, “Among the artistic languages, music is one of the most accessible and present in the students’ daily lives”. In this way, it is clear that musical activities are essential in the teaching-learning process of students, given that they help in the development of various skills necessary for educational life. Added to this are the benefits acquired through musical activities, as reported by the students in graph 2:

Graph 2. Benefits acquired by students

The study found that, of the students involved in musical activities, 68% improve their school performance, as well as their classroom behaviors. The study also found that 70% of the students improved their cognitive and psychomotor skills, and 60% of the students said they had improved their creativity through musical activities. It is thus clear that education through musical activity is the appropriate means to effectively improve the individual socialization of students, the social climate at school and the so-called capacity for empathy, because music emotionally stimulates, balances tensions, favors contacts and the ability to experience. As a free space and an experimental field for musical and sociomusical aesthetic fantasy, musical activity proved to be indispensable in the teaching-learning process of students. Since, in addition to favoring the interdisciplinary teaching process between the subjects of the curriculum, it also helps in the process of knowledge construction, favoring the development of sensitivity, creativity, rhythmic sense, imagination, memory, concentration and attention of students.

5. CONCLUSION

The aim of this study was to focus on the contribution of musical activity to teaching-learning in Elementary School, which has brought benefits to the community of students from the 5th grade of the Solange Nascimento Municipal School, in the complementation of artistic training and in its educational developments, under the which the learning possibilities have broadened their knowledge to the full. This fact was noticed in the course of this research, of how musical languages ​​were perceived sensorially and objectified in different symbolic organizations of the students. The contact with musical languages ​​involved reception and production of representations in the exercise of expressiveness moved by the students’ imagination. In this sense, musical languages ​​appeared as forms of appropriation of the world, close to the students because they are initially corporeal, sonorous and attractive, which are privileged means of appropriation of relationships and construction of concepts by students. In this way, in order to respond to the objectives and hypotheses raised about the practices of musical activities as a means to promote the quality of teaching of 5th year students and of support activities in the teaching-learning process of students at the Solange Nascimento Municipal School, it was found that the benefits of musical activities suggested by the school support the teaching action in the teaching process, in a flexible and pleasant way in the promotion of innovative sound-musical experiences. Among them, sound awareness activities and skills development with percussion wind instruments; relaxation, breathing and vocal warm-up; tips for taking care of voice placement; activities with the sounds of the recorder; handling of wind instruments; registration and notation, among others.

Thus, the actions expressed through musical activities contribute to the cultural repertoire shared in the production and reception of representations with the artistic languages ​​of the students. Contact with musical activities in Elementary School provides extensive cultural knowledge necessary for students’ understanding and representation of the world.

REFERENCES

ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE MÚSICA. A importância da música para as crianças. 1ª ed. STA Comunicação, 2002.

BRASIL. Ministério da Educação e do Desporto. Secretaria de Educação Fundamental. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional, LDB. Lei nº 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Brasília: MEC/SEF, 1996.

BRASIL. Secretaria de Educação Fundamental. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais: Arte. Volume 6 – Brasília: MEC/SEF, 1997.

BRASIL. Presidência da República. Lei nº 11.769 de agosto de 2008. Altera a Lei nº 9.394 de 20 de dezembro de 1996, Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação, para dispor sobre a obrigatoriedade do ensino da música na educação básica. Brasília, 2008.

BRITO, Teca de Alencar, Música na Educação Infantil. São Paulo: Papirus, 1998.

CATTERALL, James. How Music Can Dramatically Affect Your Child’s Development and Life-Time Success. US, UCLA, 1997.

DUARTE JÚNIOR, João Francisco. Por que Arte-Educação? 6. ed. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1991.

FERRAZ, M H C. de T.; FUSARI, M.F de R. Arte na Educação Escolar. 4. Reimpressão. Coleção Magistério. São Paulo: Cortez, 2001.

GIL, Antônio Carlos. Métodos e técnicas de pesquisa social. 5 ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2006.

MARTINS, M.C.; PICOSQUE, G.; GUERRA, M. T.T. Didática do Ensino de Arte: A Língua do Mundo: Poetizar, fruir e conhecer arte. São Paulo: FTD, 1998.

NADAL, Paula. O ensino da música em sete notas. NOVA ESCOLA Edição 245, 01 de Setembro de 2011.

SCHAFER, R. Murray; FONTERRADA, Marisa. O ouvido Pensante. São Paulo. Editora da UNESP, 1992.

VISCONTI, Márcia; BIAGIONI, Maria Zei. Educação Musical e Prática Musical em Escolas. São Paulo: ABEMÚSICA, 2002.

APPENDIX – FOOTNOTE

2. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (LDB).

3. Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN).

^[1] Master’s Student in Educational Sciences, Saint Alcuim (2016- ), Specialization in School Administration, Ucam (2006) Pedagogical Complementation in History, Fest (2005), Bachelor of Theology, Fatebov (2003).

Sent: April, 2019.

Approved: July, 2019.