The Importance of Music Educat
A few weekends ago I was talking to a relative of mine who happens to teach music at the local elementary school in my hometown. We were discussing her students and how the year was going for her so far. She had nothing but positive things to say about the children, however I could tell that something was wrong. She explained to me that a lot of music teachers in her department were losing their jobs due to cut backs in the school budget. According to the board of education music is not important enough to put forth the money to support it. They feel that reading, writing and arithmetic are the things that children need to focus on the most. They seem to be looking past the fact that we are not trying to raise a society of robots who eat, sleep, and think alike. We are trying to raise individuals with unique thoughts and creative minds as well as being intelligent people. They are looking past the fact that music nurtures the mind and soul and music education could be a simple solution to the problems in society today. I am a secondary ed. English major and most would think that I'd be on the side of the budget-cutters, stating that music should go; but in all reality, and I'm sure I can speak for others in that I don't know wh
While studying the education of the ancient Greeks I learned that their society was based on the foundation that an intelligent individual not only had skills in mathematics and knowledge of literature but they also were educated in the arts. They frequently studied music in order to maintain a well-rounded education. We have based our education system on the ways of the Greeks and Romans, so why is it changing so suddenly? In a 1996 Academy Award speech by Richard Dreyfus he gave an excellent reasoning on why we must maintain the ways of the past in the education of our children today ... "Perhaps we've all misunderstood the reason we learn music, and all the arts, in the first place. It is not only so a student can learn the clarinet, or another student can take an acting lesson. It is that for hundreds of years it has been known that teaching the arts, along with history and math and biology, help to create The Well-Rounded Mind that western civilization, and America, has been grounded on. America's greatest achievements -- in science, in business, in popular culture, would simply not be attainable without an education that encourages achievement in all fields. It is from that creativity and imagination that the solutions to our political and social problems will come. We need that Well-Rounded Mind, now. Without it, we simply make more difficult the problems we face." at I'd be without the influence of music in my life. The benefits of learning about music at a young age are incredible. It helps children become well rounded; it supplies discipline; it helps children interact with others; it helps keep a grasp on to our culture; it gives children a way to express themselves and vent. There are so many positive aspects involved in music education that it is unbelievable that it is even an option on the ballot of what "gets cut" from the budget. This paper will discuss the benefits of music education. After looking at all of these facts I don't know how music education it is not considered one of the most important subjects in a students curriculum. Still, far too many school boards and administrators deny that the study of music is one of the basics of education. They want our children to excel in math and sciences so we can be compared to the Japanese and other nations. Should we risk letting our culture diminish, by ignoring m
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Approximate Word count = 1585
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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