Why We Beat Drums at TPA: The Science of Rhythm and Learning

When visitors see students at TPA reaching for buckets and barrel drums twice a week, the natural assumption might be that this is a break from learning. It is not. It is learning, and the research behind it is substantial.

For well over a decade, neuroscientists and education researchers have been building a compelling body of evidence linking rhythmic training to cognitive development in children. The findings touch on mathematics, reading fluency, executive function, attention and language. At TPA, our twice-weekly Rhythm sessions are a direct response to that evidence.

Rhythm and the Mathematical Brain

Mathematics is, at its core, a discipline of pattern and structure. So is rhythm. This is not a coincidence.

Research indicates that incorporating rhythm and beats into mathematics lessons can help students connect mathematical concepts to real-world experiences, making lessons more meaningful. ScienceDirect A 2024 meta-analysis drawing on 23 comprehensive studies confirmed that integrating music into mathematics instruction produces measurable improvements in student performance.

The connection runs deeper than engagement. Psychological and neuroscientific research demonstrates that musical training in children is associated with enhancement in verbal abilities and general reasoning skills, PubMed Central and that rhythmic entrainment specifically supports the development of executive functions including attention, working memory and cognitive flexibility. These are precisely the cognitive tools a student needs to work through a multi-step mathematics problem with patience and precision.

Mathematical thinking and music both depend on patterns. The rhythm components of music are paired with language and create opportunities for exploring mathematical concepts. Nwciowa When a student internalizes a complex polyrhythm, they are doing something structurally similar to what they do when they work through proportional reasoning: holding multiple relationships in mind simultaneously and sensing when they resolve correctly.

Rhythm and Language: Reading, Writing and the Spoken Word

The connection between rhythmic ability and language is even more direct, and the research here is particularly striking.

A child's ability to perceive and entrain to timing cues aids first with speech, then with reading development. Nature Beat synchronization in young children has been shown to predict neural speech encoding and reading readiness. In plain terms: children who can keep a beat tend to become stronger readers.

A 2024 study published in Developmental Science found that rhythm training in 8 to 9 year old children improved reading fluency, and that improvements in reading fluency were positively correlated with enhanced rhythmic timing ability. PubMed The researchers noted that language itself utilizes rhythmic structures, and that rhythm training strengthens the neural pathways that support both.

Rhythm helps children segment words into syllables and recognize sound patterns, which are crucial skills for learning to read. Rhythmic activities also enhance working memory capacity, which is essential for reading comprehension. Themusicscientist

This carries through into written language as well. Good writing has cadence. Sentences have rhythm. A student who has internalized rhythmic structure through physical, whole-body experience is better equipped to hear the difference between a sentence that flows and one that does not. This is something that cannot be taught through grammar rules alone.

Why Drums Specifically

TPA's Rhythm sessions draw on traditions from across the world: Taiko drumming from Japan, West African djembe traditions, Caribbean styles. We use utility buckets and barrels rather than expensive instruments. This is a deliberate choice, and not only for practical reasons.

A scoping review of 27 studies published in 2025 found that 23 reported a positive effect of music and rhythm on at least one cognitive domain, most commonly executive functioning, attention and intelligence. PubMed Central The instrument does not need to be sophisticated for the neurological benefits to be real. What matters is the physical engagement: the whole body entraining to a beat, the hands and the mind working in coordination, the social dimension of keeping rhythm together as a group.

That social dimension matters too. When students drum together they are practicing something that goes beyond cognition: listening to one another, adjusting, holding a shared pulse, noticing when the group falls apart and helping pull it back together. This is, in miniature, exactly what we ask of them in every other part of the school day.

Not a Break. Not a Reward. A Tool.

We want TPA families to understand that Rhythm is not scheduled because we believe children need to move around occasionally, though they do. It is scheduled because the research supports it as a genuine cognitive intervention, one that reinforces the mathematical thinking and language fluency we are developing in every other session of the day.

When your child picks up a bucket and finds the beat, something is happening in their brain that a worksheet cannot replicate. We think that matters. The science agrees.

Sources

Zanto, T.P., et al. (2024). "Digital rhythm training improves reading fluency in children." Developmental Science. Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13473

Visee, et al. (2025). "Music and Rhythm as Promising Tools to Assess and Improve Cognitive Development in Children: A Scoping Review." Acta Paediatrica. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12420879/

Miendlarzewska, E.A. & Trost, W.J. (2014). "How musical training affects cognitive development: rhythm, reward and other modulating variables." Frontiers in Neuroscience. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3957486/

Carr, K.W., et al. (2014). "Beat synchronization predicts neural speech encoding and reading readiness in preschoolers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Zhao, T.C. & Kuhl, P.K. (2021). "Rhythm, reading, and sound processing in the brain in preschool children." npj Science of Learning. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-021-00097-5

Liu, Y., et al. (2024). "Harmonizing mathematics: Unveiling the impact of music integration on academic performance." International Journal of Educational Research. ScienceDirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187124000920

Shilling (2002) as cited in: "Using Music and Movement to Enhance Cognitive Development." Northwest Iowa University. https://nwcommons.nwciowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1118&context=education_masters

What AI Can't Do: Why The Human Story Still Matters in Education

We believe deep down that the most important skills we can help a student develop are the ones no algorithm can replace. We feel it is crucial that students be able to look thoughtfully at information, not just objectively but also critically. Lacking this kind of analytical thinking, students (and adults) can easily be swayed to believe whatever an external source is telling them is truth. This way of consuming information relegates the individual to 'lemming' status. It dehumanizes and congeals individuality. Living out one's life as another brick in the wall is not a particularly worthy goal.

We are all now well aware of what artificial intelligence is capable of. It's not 'coming', it's here. Whatever we want to think about it, pro and/or con, the smart path forward is to look at education with a keen eye on understanding that what we teach and how we teach it can have tremendous influence on keeping our young people relevant, employable, and valuable in the participatory life of their communities. The big question becomes: what kinds of learning will truly prepare a young person for the world ahead?

One of our favorite organizations is SIMA Academy, a collective which supports and rewards independent documentary film-making around the world. Robert has served as a short-entry judge for SIMA in the past (and before obtaining his M.Ed. had received a B.A. in Film Studies from the University of California-Santa Barbara and worked for a short time as a screenwriter in Los Angeles). One of our feeds recently yielded a piece written by SIMA CEO Daniela Kon Lieberberg. Ms. Lieberberg called it like it is: there is a widening gap between what students can produce and what meaning they actually take away from the process of producing.  To the great detriment of the students, most schools serve as functionaries of the 'produce and move on' style of unbalanced education. The Latin root of the word 'education' holds a duality which has been forgotten in modern, factory-style learning. 'Educare' is the act of training and molding (let's call this the basic fundamentals). 'Educere' on the other hand means to 'lead out', to 'illuminate' (let's call this the meaning behind what we learn). We argue that 'educere' has been largely forgotten since we quashed truly classical education for public mass production. There are some in this world who don't actually want people to think - they just want them to obey. TPA maintains an equal balance of 'educare' and 'educere', and has worked with meticulous care to weave both into a durable and beautiful curricular fabric. The simple point to be made is that AI can make many tasks virtually effortless. Without effort, where's the learning? Where's the individuality? Where's the pathway to meaning? We have to work to prevent AI tools from washing away what it means to be uniquely and wonderfully human, and being human requires effort. This is not to say that AI should be avoided at all costs. It has its place. In full transparency, we use Claude Sonnet to give quick 'blog-ready' shape to our OWN concepts and ideas so that we can quickly and conveniently deliver them to the public. We don't use Claude to create our ideas. We use Claude to digest our ideas, keep to our detailed prompts, and then package that information quickly. It is a tool, not unlike a spelling or grammar checker. As we see it, the slippery slope begins when we, as human beings, turn over the keys to AI and ask it to create something that we, ourselves, should have given full shape to before using the 'tool'. These are also our hard barriers against student misuse. AI can be great as a processing tool - in the same way Gutenberg's printing press began to process the dissemination of the written word in the 15th century - to give shape to a student's original thoughts, but it must not be used for creating those thoughts. If AI can be seen as a potter's wheel, that's all it should be - the tool that helps to keep the process moving so the student can create. At TPA, we require that it be the student's own hands that shape the clay, bake it, paint it, glaze it, and present it to the world. Their hands must learn to shape with personal artistry, judgment, interpretation, and critical reasoning. To do so, however, requires that the delivery of learning constantly reinforces the attainment of these attributes.

The skills that matter most are the hardest to automate

Back to Ms. Lieberberg's piece. SIMA offers a valuable framework that lays out the core competencies that all discerning human beings must develop and keep handy in their tool kit: critical reasoning and ethical judgment. These are heady terms and could easily eat up a full afternoon of teacher training. When we watch our 9-year-old overfilling their cereal bowl for the nth time, it's hard to see the connection sometimes. Thus, it is with great care that these attributes must be developed in our young people. It is our opinion, however, that these concepts are very difficult for teachers to tack on to a traditional program in which they have been trained, and where they are already working on overload to keep up with that school's version of 'educare'. At TPA, these concepts have been baked in from the outset. They are not add-ons; they have been part of the TPA architecture from day one. In other words, an educator who has spent ten years at Ye Olde Elementary-Middle School would likely struggle to adapt to our model. In 'backwards design', a term that gets bandied about regularly at educator conferences, the lesson goal comes first and then the process to try and reach that goal is laid out in aspirational steps. With great care, over five years of passion-driven dedication, TPA has 'backward designed' our entire learning model from the ground up. This is how we've built TPA's deep 'educare'+'educere' into what we truly believe to be among the very top learning models on the planet.

Still from the Italian neo-realist classic, The Bicycle Thief, directed by Vittorio De Sica. / Creative Commons

Back to our story. Visual storytelling sits at the heart of developing the capacities of self-responsible effort, critical judgment and ethical reasoning. Unlike AI-generated visual content or automated summaries (and aren't we absolutely bombarded with this junk nowadays?), a well-crafted film requires its viewers to engage actively; to examine perspective, consider sources, recognize any bias, and ask - often the most uncomfortable part - whose voice is heard and whose is silent. These are all critical and creative processes that a good storyteller must address. To deliver those goods to the viewer, the creator first has to work through them herself. A well-crafted presentation, then, becomes a thought-provoking win-win on both sides of the camera.

These skills are considered to be so crucial these days that not only will The Promontory have a media studio in the learning space, but the OECD will be including Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy in the 2029 PISA assessment. This alone speaks to the need for individual educators and collective learning models to ensure that students have worked up to the ability to interrogate the world around them; not in a hostile way, but with a calm and measured confidence. Isn't this the way most of our film heroes respond to the world and command the lead?

The ideas in this post draw on the essay "Chasing Algorithms: Why the Future of Education Depends on the Stories Machines Can't Tell" by Daniela Kon Lieberberg, CEO of SIMA Academy.

Why We've Rejected the Sterile Classroom

A school should feel like a place worth being. At TPA, we have built our learning space around a simple conviction: that warmth, beauty, and comfort are not distractions from serious learning — they are conditions for it.

Most classrooms follow a familiar formula: rows of desks, fluorescent lighting, whiteboard on one wall, clock on another. Functional, perhaps. But also cold. Impersonal. Designed for compliance rather than curiosity.

At TPA, we have made a deliberate choice to reject that aesthetic entirely. Our learning space draws instead from an older tradition — the classical salon — where ideas were exchanged in rooms full of books, natural light, comfortable seating, and objects that invited thought. Where conversation was considered as important as instruction. Where the space itself communicated that thinking was a worthwhile and even pleasurable activity.

A room that invites learning.

Picture warm lamp light instead of overhead fluorescents. A worn Persian rug underfoot. Armchairs alongside a proper work table. Shelves of books. Living plants. A globe. Art on the walls. Exposed timber and arched windows that bring the outside in.

These are not decorative choices. They are pedagogical ones. Research consistently shows that the physical environment shapes how people think and feel. A space that is warm and human in scale encourages students to settle in, slow down, and engage more deeply. A space that feels institutional encourages them to endure it and leave.

Crucially, none of this means sacrificing capability. Our space is fully equipped with modern technology — because the salon aesthetic and ready technology are not in conflict. A well-designed room can hold both a chalkboard and a screen, both a reading chair and a recording studio.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4d5f42_45d5b26079ec49e4bb1ec719bad1841f/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The learning space we are aiming for.

The 'Opening 20'

Every morning at TPA begins the same way. Before any formal instruction, students gather together for what we call the Opening 20 — twenty minutes of morning snacks, tea, and open conversation.

No agenda. No assessment. Just people in a room, talking. About what they read, what they noticed, what they are thinking about. It is, in the truest sense, a civilized beginning to the day.

This practice is not incidental to our educational philosophy — it is our educational philosophy, made daily and visible. The ability to converse well, to listen carefully, to exchange ideas with grace and genuine curiosity — these are among the most important things a young person can learn. They are also among the hardest to teach through a lesson plan.

On the word ‘civilized’

We use the word civilized deliberately and without apology. It is a word that has fallen somewhat out of fashion in educational discourse, perhaps because it carries associations with formality or exclusion. We mean something different by it. We don't require uniforms, but we like when our students come 'dressed to represent'. When you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good you move forward with confidence. No phones are out unless requested by the learning guide (and that will be rare).

To us, civilized means a learning environment where people treat one another with genuine respect. Where a conversation has shape and rhythm. Where a morning cup of tea is a small but meaningful ritual that says: this time together matters. Where the space around you communicates that knowledge is worth pursuing and that you, as a learner, are worth investing in.

That is the environment we are building at TPA. And we believe it makes all the difference.