The HeART of Education

For centuries, music and the arts have been a major staple in education, but as time went on less and less focus have been put on music and the arts, especially in these modern times. Plato once said “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.” This statement still holds true as music has been the basis for scientific discoveries throughout time. The astronomer Johannes Kepler was able to arrive at his third law of planetary motion -- the relationship between a planet’s distance from the Sun and the time it takes to orbit -- by expressing the planetary motions in musical notation. (Strike) This and many other instances are great examples that given the academic and social benefits of arts education in a student’s life, there needs to be more focus and funding put into the arts in schools.

Academics and educational achievement, for many students all across the world, are a major source of stress and confusion because of a lack of preparedness. Music education, however, has been proven to help children even from a young age. Music education, when provided to young children, has been linked to language development and increased spatial-temporal skills. When it comes to language development and the effects of music education, researchers will typically look at children in between ages two and nine. Monitoring of this age group is beneficial because within that age range it’s natural for the brain to work in order to recognize sounds and words. Music education only helps enhance those natural abilities. What’s meant when saying that the brain itself is working, is that musical training is physically developing the left side of the brain, which is involved in processing language. (Brown) This work of the brain then allows for an increase in spatial-temporal skills, meaning that the brain has a larger thinking capacity. This spatial intelligence allows children to make connections that would allow them to solve multi-step problems like they would when solving a math problem. (Brown) Academic benefits isn’t even the end of what music education can do for students. There is also evidence of social benefits.

“Will they like me?” “Will I make any friends?” These are questions many young people ask themselves when playing the social game known as life. These same students, when exposed to music and arts education, are then able to find their answers. Being involved in arts education allows students to completely disregard these questions and let relationships build naturally while also boosting their self-esteem. What’s meant when saying they build relationships naturally is that when in a music group, like a band or orchestra, or a performance arts group like a cast for a musical, the student is surrounded by individuals that have the same interests. Being surrounded by this group of like minded peers then allows for friendships to just happen naturally with not much work having to be put into them. (Hallam) Now, before these friendships can be formed, the student needs to have self-esteem in order to have the courage to instigate the beginnings of a friendship. This self-esteem comes from learning how to play an instrument. When a student learns to play an instrument they gain pride and confidence in themselves and once they start learning how to play difficult music they gain a sense of accomplishment with their own achievements. (20 Important)

Sadly, even with so much proof about their benefits, the arts are in danger in our school systems as a result of competition from other extracurricular programs and downsizing because of budget cuts. This competition usually comes from sports. It’s no secret that most people would rather go to a football game rather than an orchestra concert or school musical. T.J Nelson, an editor from World Music Center, tells a story from 2005 that really captures this fact. She says that just in the Durham school system, 112 teaching positions were done away with and a majority of those were music and arts positions. (Nelson) Although competition from other extracurriculars is a detriment to the arts that’s not it’s biggest problem. The biggest problem for the arts comes from lack of funding. There was an interview conducted in 2009 whose sole purpose was to address this issue. This interview was done by KPBS’s Maureen Cavanaugh and she was talking to Russ Sperling, director of Visual and Performing Arts for Sweetwater Union High School District and Dr. Diana Hollinger teaches music education at San Jose State University. In this interview both Sperling and Dr. Hollinger agreed that the most important part of a music program is the teacher, but because of budget cuts many schools are letting their music teachers go. Sperling even told a story saying “ I had a principal tell me this morning, I’m not sure next year if I’m going to be able to keep my music teacher onboard.” (Carone)

For many years, arts education has been close to my heart and I have had experiences with all three of these situations. When I was younger, meaning the first few years of elementary school, I didn’t care about school at all. I was the loud kid that would just cut up and want to have fun. I never got in trouble because I was still a good kid, but I just didn’t want to do anything school related. I thought it was boring. But then in fifth grade I started playing the cello and that was really my first experience with arts education. Once I started playing the cello, I noticed a difference in how I performed in school. I was put into the advanced classes, my test scores improved, I cared about the work I was doing, I actually enjoyed school and was having with it. Just my experience, while not definitive proof, is a fantastic example of a student’s academic prowess improving as a result of having an arts background. So with academic achievement came my other point in this whole argument: social benefits. After starting cello I would go on to play through middle and high school, getting pretty good if I’d say so myself, and making several great friends that I still have to this day. Cello, however, doesn’t provide me with the best example of arts helping my social life. That honor belongs to the school musical. In high school, I would end up doing the school musical my sophomore to senior year and to be honest that was the most fun experience of my entire highschool life. In this order we did Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, and Oklahoma and as time went on during these musicals I made some of the best friends I could ever ask for. You might be asking yourself, “Well, how did the arts directly benefit your social life?” and the answer is confidence. Having something that I was good at and that I loved boosted my confidence so much and made me so much more willing to put myself out there. Also just from being around people that had the same interests in the arts as me made becoming friends a lot easier and much more natural feeling. Now, the aspect of arts education that has always saddened and angered me is the lack of focus or funding from the school. Being a part of arts education programs for so long I have seen many highs and lows and this has always been a low. When I was living in Fayetteville, there was almost no focus put into the arts program. It was all about sports so people didn’t really care about us. If you went to a football game the crowd would be massive, but if you went to the orchestra concert it was pitiful in comparison. I noticed a difference, however, when I moved to Boone. The arts still may not have been on the same level as sports, but there was a noticeable difference in how much this town cared about its arts programs as compared to Fayetteville. A lot of the time with an arts

program, however, it’s not the lack of focus that’s the downfall, but the lack of funding. I really only noticed this to be a problem once I got to high school, it was then that I realized how big of a problem it was. In my high school orchestra, funding was a big problem. We had to do so many fundraisers just to be able to go on trips that we were doing. After those trips, there was barely any money left. This was really upsetting because in order for an orchestra to thrive, the musicians need to have good equipment. Several people couldn’t afford their own instrument and had to borrow from the school. This wasn’t a great scenario because the school’s instruments weren’t in the best shape and we had no money to replace them. There was no money to replace instruments, no money to replace bows, there wasn’t even any money for our director to buy new music. We were still a great orchestra, but I always wonder how much better we could’ve been if we had the same funding the football team does.






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