Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Why Music Education Belongs in Public Schools
I found this video and thought it was incredibly insightful. Roger H. Brown, the president of Berklee College of Music, hits points that explain why Music Education is essential to the public school system. He discusses how the school system is so focused on standardized testing as the judgment for intelligence that those who don't necessarily excel in academic courses/standardized tests are basically rejected from succeeding in this system that has formed over the past years. He provides a great example of John Coltrane to solidify his point. He also discusses how music education motives people to want to learn and even reaches out to a deeper level in the individual because there is a type of connection made with music that many people may not make with per se Chemistry or Calculus. In general, the video really points out how the education of music is essential and should be treated of equal importance as the "basic" courses such as English, Math and Science.
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Ah, yes. If kids have different learning styles than those of which their schools are catering to them, if they don't test well, if they get bad grades, etc., they're thought to be unintelligent. I've always hated that. What a twisted conformist system. I really think that music is the solution, too, and not just for the reasons that Brown detailed: music opens other ways to learning. It opens minds. Teaching music and the arts will encourage students to learn creatively and differently, and that learning creatively and differently are okay.
ReplyDeleteJust because a student fails a test doesn't mean they learned or didn't retain anything. We are constantly learning and retaining information. Schooling isn't all about test and homework scores. We just don't always want to learn what is said we need to learn. Music is the one greatest discipline in the world. You can never reach a point of true perfection, you can always get better the longer you push and try.
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