Blog Lafayette

Music is amazing. Do you know anyone who doesn’t like music in some form or another? I am hard pressed to come up with anyone. Lafayette has a great musical heritage. Our city continues to produce performers with the talent to shine on the World stage.

Lafayette has given us Jeremy Camp, Shannon Hoon, Ken Navarro, and Axl Rose to name a few. Gifted local artist Chaconne Klaverenga is another. Chaconne lives in Lafayette and is renowned for her classical guitar performances on the national scene and has performed for the Performance Today radio program as well as internationally.

What made me think about the music scene in Lafayette? A music video clip that I saw on the Internet earlier this week. The performer is Heather Russell. She is not from Lafayette, but she brings to mind the talent that has made itself known over and over through the years in our artistic little community. Take the time to listen to her. It is hard to believe that she is only 10 years old.

Talent is a wonderful thing. I hope she goes far.

I read an article by Taya Flores in the Journal and Courier this evening that asked a question. Can the violin help children to read? The story is about first grade students in Attica Indiana that are being taught to play the violin by their teacher, Kasia Bugaj as part of the Attica String Project. An associate professor of music education at Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana developed the curriculum being used by the school in Attica. The curriculum was developed in order to test on the effects of learning violin on the reading ability of the students in the program. The study, which began in 2008, shows that reading ability was improved for the test students.

I am not surprised by the findings of the study so far. Learning to play music is a wonderful way to bring direction and structure to a mind, young or old. I would actually be more surprised if learning to play violin did not improve reading. It seems intuitive that any activity that required dedication, perseverance, and thought would improve reading and writing abilities.

It is nice to know that the Attica school corporation is using these methods to awaken the hearts and minds of these young students. We live in a time when the news continually brings stories about how American schools are losing the battle to adequately teach our young people. This story about one of our local area schools bringing the gifts of music and reading to its students gives me new confidence. We are learning new ways to teach our young people skills that will lead them to richer and more productive lives, and to me, that brings hope in the era of 2 + 2 = 5.

To see the article, follow this link: www.jconline.com/article

Hello everyone. Welcome to the inaugural post from bloglafayette.com. My name is Scott Whitley and I am proud to be a citizen of the great town of Lafayette Indiana! I moved here from Illinois about 6 years ago and Lafayette has become home. I love the fact that Lafayette is a town that is not standing still. When you move to Lafayette from a more rural town one of the first things that you notice is that there is always something going on to interest just about every type of person.

One of my personal favorites is to go out to Wolf Park located just North of Battleground Indiana, and just a few minutes drive from downtown Lafayette, to see the wolves howl on a Saturday nights. I know, I know, maybe not everyone’s idea of excitement, but I find it to be great and the wolves are fascinating.

If you are looking for something to do this weekend then head on over to West Lafayette this Saturday, September 4, 2010 from 10am to 9pm and enjoy the food and entertainment of Global Fest. It is a festival celebrating diversity in the Lafayette area which is home to people from about 120 different countries around the world. For more information about this event go to the City of West Lafayette Global Fest page www.westlafayette.in.gov/department/division.php?fDD=8-114 to see a timetable of events for the day. Whatever you do, please do it safely! We want you around for a long time.