Why Are Music Programs Important?
Plato once said “Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education.” When you think about it, you hear music every day. It is a constant in pretty much everybody’s lives. Many state board of education’s all across the United States are doing away with music programs stating that children do not need a music credit to pass high school with a diploma. Because of this, many kids are missing out on a lot of really good benefits.
Music programs gift children in them a coping skill that they can use all throughout the rest of their lives. When a student participates in a band setting, they are able to gain social and personal responsibility.
Some other benefits of your child participating in a music program are: an improvement of academic skills, cultivation of social skills, a refining of discipline and patience and a boost of self — esteem. Music programs are also a great introduction to cultures different than your own.
According to a study from Dawn Rose at the University of Hertfordshire (released by the American Psychological Association [APA] 2018), learning a musical instrument can benefit a child with special education needs. The study explores outcomes related to musical learning in a child with complex special education needs. Pretesting showed that the child being examined had a Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) full scale IQ score of 103. At the conclusion of the study, the child’s WASI full scale IQ was 112. Just imagine what can happen when a child engages in music courses all throughout their educational career.
There are many benefits to music programs and we, quite frankly, shouldn’t allow our boards of education to continue to discredit and de-fund them. It has been statistically proven that kids perform better in the education setting when they have been trained on an instrument. To allow our children to be held back from being artistically creative is to brainwash them into being mindless drones.
Sources:
http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpmu0000209
https://nafme.org/20-important-benefits-of-music-in-our-schools/
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the-benefits-of-music-education/
