To Sing is to Learn Twice: The Importance of Musical Training in Early Education Curriculum
After the onset of fiscal year 2018 and the budget cuts to education that followed, it has become increasingly difficult for public school systems to justify using their dwindling funding for arts programs. In particular, music education programs present high costs to public schools with few easily measurable or easily perceptible rewards. However, the benefits that students experience from the inclusion of music education programs in public school curriculum are varied, vast, and important not only for the developing brains of young students, but also for the development of society by extension. This paper seeks to demonstrate that, despite a general reduction in funding to schools and also to their respective arts programs, music education programs present too many important benefits to students, including increased grade point averages, and improved attention spans, and higher general intelligence quotients, to be cut from public school curriculum.
Keywords: music education, public school, child development, education
Topic(s):Interdisciplinary
Music
Psychology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 304-1
Location: MG 1098
Time: 1:00