Learning Through Music

There are 6000 (approx) government and low-income schools in Delhi. In Delhi, more than 20% schools have music teachers, of which some are inactive. Furthermore, music is taught only on a theoretical level in schools, failing to act as a catalyst for growth. Thus, we intend to bring a transformative change and impact classroom learning and enable life skills through our flagship programme "Learning through Music" in schools. Most schools face an issue of low student attendance, largely due to lack of interest in education. This leads to low educational outcomes and low student performance, reflected in inadequate reading, comprehension and mathematical abilities. We believe that cultural arts, especially music can have a big role to play in getting children interested to come to school, thus triggering other essential elements of change. Music brings happiness, inculcates confidence and creativity, and ignites the true potential of a child. After running this project in various schools and NGOs we have seen students becoming leaders, improving their grade rates and becoming more sensitised about life skills.

Through music we intend to teach children how to express their hopes, feelings, and ideas. Our activities are designed to be fun and creative, and many times we extend them to incorporate lessons of reading, writing, spoken English, values, social and life skills, menstrual hygiene, reproductive health and gender education. The objective is to make music a part of education system and change the relationship of a child with learning.

Customised curriculum as per the batch size and time available across the academic year makes each centre unique. Our compositions are of a socially aware and responsible nature. Thus, students imbibe a socially responsible outlook from a young age, with issues related to gender inequality, world peace, conflict resolution and inclusion. This is a year long programme where workshops take place in schools once in a week for 2 hours with a group of 25-40 students.

Currently, we have 25 music classrooms in 21 schools and working with 1300 students across Delhi. We are planning to increase it to 50 classrooms and work with 4000 students across Delhi NCR in 50 schools.

a. Qualitative Impact:

ni.Exposure to Music: LTM is often the first exposure of students to music.A hobby like music is something to fall back upon - in times of grief, music is proven to keep teenagers from engaging in harmful and anti - social activities r nii.Creativity and Confidence: The programme nurtures creativity and helps build confidence in participating students r niii.Sensitisation to Social issues: Our lessons on life skills, spoken English, value education and social skills often make deep - lasting impacts on the personality and outlook of students r niv.Music as a profession: Numerous LTM students have also taken up music as a profession and are doing really well.(Some current members of Manzil Mystics are ex - LTM students) r nb.Quantitative Impact: As we have been running the project at small scale, we have seen school attendance and grades / marks of students undertaking LTM workshops to have increased within one year of enrolment.Some studies have been conducted to assess the quantitative impact of the programme, specifically on learning outcomes in curricular subjects.