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Clothes are brightly colored and consist of simple wraps, covering either only the lower body or both the lower body and upper body. In Islamic regions, covering is more substantial, and daily wear includes a head wrap

The legacy of Islamic rule along the coast of East Africa remains strong, and the majority of those on the coast and in North-East Africa are practicing Muslims

East African music consists of simpler instrumentation than Central Africa or West Africa, with a heavy reliance on percussion and basic horns, and less in the way of complex bowing. Since the 1980s East Africa has produced a great deal of fusion music, incorporating elements from Western music to create mash-ups of traditional and modern. Many countries in North-East Africa draw on Arabic influence in their music as well, incorporating elements such as religious poetry into the songs.

The American System helped to fuel the belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States

The American System helped to fuel the belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States

● Henry Clay's American System eventually ran out of steam during the administration of President Jackson

The clinical implications of this negative association between MPA and flow suggest that a two-pronged approach focusing on facilitating flow and positive functioning as well as reducing pathological MPA may bring about improvements in the performer’s subjective performing experienc

Seligman’s (2011) most recent model of well-being, from the field of positive psychology, understands well-being as comprising five elements: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievemen

There is a substantial body of Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) research providing evidence that MPA is a debilitating phenomenon (Kenny, 2011) which can affect musicians at any stage of their careers, from highly experienced professional performers (Fishbein, Middlestadt, Ottati, Straus, & Ellis, 1988; Kenny, Driscoll, & Ackerman, 2014) through to child beginners

Anxiety is often described as having an antithetical relationship to the experience of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), and it has been suggested that fostering techniques for facilitating flow may provide a powerful tool for reducing MPA and encouraging optimal performance

“when performance anxiety was highest, flow was lowest and vice versa … the presence of one minimises the magnitude of the other” (Fullager et al., 2013, p. 251), and a recent study found evidence of a strong, significant negative association between flow and MPA amongst 200 professional orchestral musicians (Cohen & Bodner, 2018), supporting Kirchner et al.’s (2008) earlier findings with music students

Investigations of the efficacy of existing methods for treating MPA indicate that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based interventions are most effective (for an overview, see Burin & Osorio, 2016).

However, evidence suggests that pharmacological methods, particularly beta-blockers, are most commonly used, often in the absence of medical supervision (Cohen & Bodner, 2018; Kenny et al., 2014) and that the subject of MPA is still stigmatised, with many musicians and teachers unwilling to talk openly about it

Csikszentmihalyi’s nine dimensions of flow as follows

Although there was an increase in flow over time, this was not significant, F(1, 20) = 4.27, p > .05, η2 =.18, and there was no evidence of a significant interaction between group and time, F(1, 20) = 0.56, p > .05, η2 = .03, indicating that the hypothesis that there would be an increase in self-reported levels of flow in the intervention group, was not supported.

Figure 4. Judge-rated musical performance quality and signs of performance anxiety in the intervention group.

These results support the fourth hypothesis that there would be an increase in judge-rated PQ and a decrease in judge-rated SPA.

Results showed evidence of a significant negative association between MPA and flow, and three out of the four study hypotheses were supported: the music performance skills intervention was found to be effective in reducing pre-/post-test MPA in the intervention group compared to the wait-list control group; there were significant improvements in positive and negative affect and state anxiety associated with the performance situation in the intervention group; and there were significant improvements in judge-rated PQ and behavioural signs of performance anxiety. However, there was no significant change in pre-/post-test measures of flow. These findings will now be discussed in more detail.

This supports the understanding of MPA as a specific type of anxiety, where the performer suffers from MPA without necessarily being generally anxious or impaired in any other areas of his/her life (Clark & Williamon, 2011; Hoffman & Hanrahan, 2011) and corresponds to Kenny’s (2011) description of the first and most mild of three types of MPA (for full coverage of this issue, see Kenny, 2011).

Thus, the absence in improvement in levels of flow in the current study could also be due to the low average hours of daily practice reported

The increases in participants’ positive affect and decreases in negative affect after the second simulated performance compared to the first indicate that the intervention was effective in facilitating positive emotion, the first component of Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model of well-being

Evidence of improvements in judge-rated performance quality indicate that the intervention was also effective in facilitating the fifth (Achievement) component of the PERMA model.

“Ironically, it may be that the last people to receive some benefit from the therapeutic value of music may be the musicians themselves” (Brodsky, 1996, p. 95).

Hopefully, such an approach will enable developing musicians to acquire the skills necessary to enjoy satisfying, successful and healthy lives as performing musicians, in which the threat of debilitating MPA and the need to recourse to beta-blockers are a thing of the past.

Cohen, S., & Bodner, E. (2019). Music performance skills: A two-pronged approach – facilitating optimal music performance and reducing music performance anxiety. Psychology of Music, 47(4), 521–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618765349

I have a dream

I have a dream

I have a dream

By 2021, schools must offer diplomas based students reaching proficiency in the four core academic subject areas: English, math, science and social studies. By 2025, four additional subject areas will be included: a second language, the arts, health and physical education.

proficiency-based idea has also created headaches at some schools for teachers trying to monitor students’ individual progress.

Students have more flexibility to learn at their own pace and teachers get time to provide extra help for students who need it

It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Bowen said. “It was a systems design problem.”

offer students clarity about what they have to learn and how they are expected to demonstrate they’ve learned it.

Deciding to believe that all students are capable of learning all of the standards, she said, “was scary.”

We inherited a structure for schooling that was based on time and on philosophical beliefs that learning would be distributed across a bell curve,

get crystal clear about what we want students to know and be able to do and then how to measure it.”