Musical programmes, designed for children as young as six to 18 months, that have gained recognition throughout North America, are now being adopted in Bermuda. While the subject may be music, the benefits for the overall development of a child's academic ability is making headlines in educational circles.

One such programme is `Mommy and Me', and is currently being taught by a specialist in music for young children by Mrs. Mary Eileen Schaefer Marie.

"It's really a play group, loosely structured and as much geared to the parents as to the children. Some parents have never been exposed to music,''she explains. "Simple activities, such as singing, clapping, rolling and tossing large coloured balls, all help interaction between child and parent and, at the same time, helps develop language and motor skills. Very young children are naturally receptive to the sound and rhythm of music,'' she explains.

"We show them how to use maracas and drums, but we make a point of leaving them around for children to play with and use as exploratory tools, because that's how a child learns. They start off by just watching other children or their parents and then start developing these skills themselves. It's all subconscious!'' Mrs. Marie also teaches Suzuki to children who are only two and a half years old. "When I teach at that level, it's not so much teaching music as teaching children how to think.'' She firmly believes that all children absorb music quite easily and naturally, if they are exposed at an early age. She said: "If you think about it, the change from big motor skills (clapping) to small motor skills (playing the piano or violin), is a big change. If they've been encouraged to go along to classes that are fun, and something they are used to, they will adapt well.

Traditionally, we have had the situation when a parent suddenly decides, right out of the blue, that when a child gets to be about seven or eight, that he has to learn an instrument.'' Mrs. Marie maintains that when this is done, the teacher is asking the child to intellectualise without giving him any idea or experience of what music is all about. An older child learning the piano, she says, has to think in several different ways at once. "Different channels of the brain are being used because they have to deal with the intellectual concept of reading music, creating that spatially in their minds and then get their hands to produce a physical output. They also develop self-control because they have to learn to maintain the correct tempo and manipulating the fingers requires great concentration and self-control,'' she explains.

"I feel my role as a teacher is to give a child certain tools to think. If I'm not successful in that, it's my failure, not the child's fault.'' She firmly believes that these early lessons teach the process of logic and thought processes. "Music helps the study of maths, for instance, because both are about the study of amounts -- how they are organised together. Music is organised sound and sound is about lengths, divisions, speeds, and so on.'' She points out that in the so-called `dark ages' of mediaeval times, music was regarded as integral to education as mathematics. This was true, even at the beginning of this century. But for some inexplicable reason, there was a switch in attitude and educators began to treat music as being merely an entertainment -- an educational `frill'. "Nothing,'' she declares, "could be further from the truth. As soon as a child starts to learn an instrument, it triggers off a complicated and delicate process in the brain which develops the overall intellectual ability.'' Music programme is more than just notes There is also increasing evidence that children enrolled in active music programmes are less likely to get into trouble as they enter their teens.

Mrs. Marie is one of those who firmly believes that `head-start' music programmes help develop a child's self-esteem. Her belief is based on practical experience gained in teaching in inner-cities in North America.

With a degree in piano performance from De Paul University, Chicago, she also qualified as a Suzuki teacher at the School for Strings in New York, as well as undertaking Dalcroze training at Columbia University.

Before her arrival here last September to head up the Suzuki piano department at the Dunbarton School of Music, she was department head for more than 140 students at the Bethwood School in Connecticut.

"I discovered that I could teach well, and I find that very satisfying,'' she says. "When I was teaching in Miami, I found that in the course of a day, I was wearing many different musical hats. I taught at the Miami School of Musical Arts, then I would go into a black Catholic school in the Overton area, right in the midst of where the last bad Miami riots started. I would then go to Miami Beach to teach Jewish Hassidic children, so all day long, I was teaching children from completely different backgrounds. I believe the fact that I ran a gospel choir at the inner city school was important because it helped the children to express their talent and to be part of the community in a positive way. We gave performances all over the city, and used to run talent shows, too. I think it helped them develop their minds, as well as their self-confidence. It taught me that the needs of children are really universal.'' During the United Nations' Year of the Child, Mrs. Marie had her inner children perform in shows where the children could express their concerns about the problems of the world. One of them, Keiran Howard, wrote "a very good rap'' to some instrumental music she had written. "It was so good that after we'd performed it, a friend and I re-wrote the music and then we took the kids to a professional studio and recorded the vocals. I gave it to `Childhope', a UNICEF programme that had created a special curriculum on the plight of the world's children. They used the rap song as part of the programme. For me,'' she explains, "it was really interesting to see another example of music being a way for kids to express themselves and to gain confidence by that expression. As a teacher, it's important for me to develop a student's mind, self-confidence , discipline and creativity.''