SCD as intelligence booster?

Ron Macnaughton

Message 17933 · 14 Jul 1999 00:46:03 · Fixed-width font · Whole thread

I've heard that psychologists have studied how young children's exposure to
chess, music, computers etc. has affected their long term intellectual
growth and school performance. I understand music is very significant -
more than computers. This makes sense to me: growing minds learn to
create patterns from repeating sounds.

Have any studies been done on the effects of learning Scottish Country
Dancing at a young age?

Obviously it must improve some gross motor skills and give students the
benefits of exposure to music with patterns (in contrast to much modern
music).

I also wonder what other skills are stimulated by SCD:
- mathematical ability: symmetry, translations as a dance cycles through
the 4 couples in a set 3 at a time (and reflections through the origin in
"Crossing the Line")
- memorization under stress
- sense of timing to fill all the bars of a phrase; listening skills
- problem solving (how to help someone with the least disruption)
- group skills
- social skills (a problem with many high achieving science students I've
taught)
- resistance to peer pressure skills (a teenager in a kilt?)

A thread a while ago talked of the number of Scottish Dancers with high
technical/intellectual abilities: scientists, mathematicians etc. Were
these attracted to SCD as an adult or did youthful jigs and reels help the
development of these other abilities?

This information would be particularly useful to a school considering
including SCD as part of their program. Think of the wonderful dancers
we will have in the future if SCD gets back into the schools.

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Ron Macnaughton "There are two kinds of light ...The glow that
Bolton Ontario illumines,and the glare that obscures."
James Thurber
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