Advocacy for Music

Music is one of the most important non-core subjects that can be offered in schools. In
many schools, we are beginning to see a lack of fine arts, due to various reasons (e.g. its not
seen as important or there are not enough resources). While these may be a contributing factor, I
believe that it is important for students, regardless of age, gender, religion, or ethnicity to have an
opportunity to experience music. Music plays a crucial role in the development of students,
whether it is in the music room or in other classes.
Paul Lehmans article, Why Teach Music in School talks about some of the significance
of music in education. He addresses Ludwig van Beethoven to be considered one of the greats,
along with individuals such as William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein. If students are not able
to learn about Beethoven, it leaves out a significant part of history that many parents believe to
be significant. In the same article, Lehman discusses how music is one of the nine types of
intelligence, along with logical-mathematical (math) and linguistic (language arts). Since music
is considered one of these types of intelligence, why does it make sense to cut this? Sir Ken
Robinson said in his TED talk that, creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and
we should treat it with the same status. By cutting the music program it demonstrates to
students that as society that we do not appreciate all types of intelligence. This translates to
students not being able to explore an area that they may excel in, potentially leaving many
students feeling lost.
Music also provides a social aspect that is critical for student development. Students who
experience an exceptional may feel that they do not belong in a regular classroom. These
students turn to subjects such as music for a release. What generally happens in these settings is

that students may not feel the competition that they do in other subjects, allowing them to feel
more comfortable and build these crucial friendships.
Other subjects in a school can benefit from music, such as math. In 1999 an experiment
conducted by Shaws group (Shaw, Graziano, and Peterson, 1999) testing whether music
enhanced math or vice versa. They divided grade 2 students into three groups, one group
focusing on music and math, the second group focused English and math, the last group was just
math. From their findings they determined that the group who focused on music and math scored
higher than the other groups. They concluded that piano playing strengthened the spatial
awareness plus the ability to think ahead both important math skills (Jensen, 2001). What we
can see from this example is that music reaches further than just the band room.
In conclusion, music has a great impact in both the development of students and assisting
in other subjects, such as math. If we do not have music in the classroom, we are robbing
students of the knowledge, creativity and the security that they deserve. There are KSAs (#7, 9,
17) that demand us to ensure students are in a safe environment, take many approaches to
teaching and learning and ensuring we meeting the Teaching Quality Standard (optimizing
learning by students using appropriate pedagogical knowledge and abilities).