Music in Our Schools

     Due to many schools not having enough money, they are making budget cuts often leaving music programs without anything.  Most schools however, do not realize the importance of keeping music in schools is just as important as keeping sports programs and other academic or social clubs.  Music programs are usually seen as “nonessential,” when in fact they bring several benefits to the learning environment.  Perhaps one of the biggest benefits that I know can come from keeping music in the schools is that, music stimulates the brain.  Whether a student is taking a beginner guitar class or is in an advanced music theory class, the student is able to receive their “daily dosage” of music, helping to wake up and rejuvenate their brains.  Because of this benefit, it has been proven that most students who are involved in a music class or program tend to have better grades than those who are not.  In addition to music stimulating the brain, music also as a direct correlation to each of the core subjects that students take.  For example, in science classes students learn about sound waves, and in English classes students learn how to write poetry with meter and fluency, similar to how it would be to write a piece of music.  Also, in math classes students learn about fractions which are used in music meter, and finally; a vast knowledge of what historians know about ancient civilizations is learned through songs that have been passed down and other forms of art such as pottery and paintings.  As you can tell, music is not just a silly elective that students can take for fun; it reaps with educational benefits as well as social benefits for students.

            Music also serves as an emotional outlet for students, similar to how gym class or recess is able to be an outlet for student’s energy.  By allowing students the opportunity to go and whack some boom whackers together, shake a tambourine around, and make as much noise as they want to it can curb loud disruptive behavior in the classroom because that student has already had their chance to make all the noise they wanted to.  Finally, the biggest benefit that I personally feel music in the schools can enable is its sense of community and bringing people together.  Just like how in The Power of One, when Peekay was conducting the concert and everyone was singing, nobody cared that there were prisoners, kaffirs, whites, whomever it may have been was singing together even if it may have just been for that one day of the concert.  I know that when I have band, chorus, or piano classes I feel that sense of community and family and knowing that it doesn’t matter who you are, but that we can all come together because we have one thing in common, that being music, even if it might only be for one period a day.