Delving into the MIND of a child

Deirdre Newman

Word problems in elementary school math classes usually evoke the

same reaction in students as getting a shot at the doctor’s office.

A Costa Mesa company is trying to change that attitude. Instead of

using words, the Music Intelligence Neural Development Institute uses

pictures and patterns to capitalize on the brain’s innate abilities.

On Friday, MIND Institute board member Paul Folino -- president of

Costa Mesa-based Emulex -- kicked off a major fund-raising drive to

expand and further develop its program based on state standards. The

goal is to raise $1.25 million during 2003.

Although no Newport-Mesa Unified schools participate in the

institute’s program, trustee Martha Fluor said she would talk to

Supt. Robert Barbot next week about trying a pilot version the

program.

“I think it has a lot of potential and merit, especially in regard

to the concept that it’s nonverbal,” Fluor said. “It will cut across

all language levels. In that respect, it’s real positive.”

The institute started four years ago to combat the

underperformance of Orange County students in math and science.

The math program, currently serving second- through

fourth-graders, is based on 28 years of research. It uses video games

to develop children’s skills of visualizing and planning ahead. It

also involves music theory and keyboard training to take advantage of

the parallels between math and music.

“Music is like the exercise for higher brain reasoning,” said Dr.

Gordon Shaw, chairman of the institute’s board and professor emeritus

of physics at UC Irvine. “It develops the neural hardware for this

kind of thinking.”

The program also provides real-time feedback for teachers by

collecting and analyzing what’s going on in the classroom and

delivering feedback to teachers using the Internet.

The program is especially effective with students whose first

language is not English, since it does not rely heavily on language,

said Andrew Coulson, president of the education division.

“It helps kids where before language was a barrier so they get

success that transfers into other areas beyond math,” Coulson said.

The success of the program has translated into higher test scores

for students using the program in California.

Nine-hundred-and-seventy-seven third-graders who participated in the

program averaged a 13.2-percentile increase on the 2002 Stanford 9

math scores. Third-graders in the same schools who did not

participate in the program showed a 2.9-percentile increase.

Denise Esparza, a teacher at Madison Elementary School in Santa

Ana, said that while she has seen a lot of programs come and go in

her 29 years of teaching, the institute’s program has the solid

foundation to withstand the politics of education.

“This is one to keep,” Esparza said. “Oftentimes, math books don’t

focus on how to teach these difficult concepts.”