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| Photo: calstatela.edu |
California is a state of great diversity. It’s also a state that has struggled to produce a strong public education system for many years...
I currently hang my hat in America’s most sought out city—San Diego. However, I hail from the small streets of Moreno Valley, California, a city with a population in the 200 thousands but an appeal of small town suburbs where everyone knows everyone and Starbucks is a brand new venture.
I grew up with Music as a major influence in my life. My uncle, brother and myself dabble in instruments and vinyl is a collecting habit of the Young family. My brother and I joined the band programs as young as elementary school and found it to be the link behind our social world, passion, creative thinking, and dedication. That being said, I wanted to take a closer look into the idea that Music has the potential to increase education and enhance learning.
Karl Glenn claimed music as one of the great art forms--one in which could mature creativity and enhance education (Glenn, 1992).
Just listening to music has the capability to enhance spatial task performance, design and procedure, and the study of music can produce higher creative and learning functions (Shaw, Rauscher, & Ky, 1994).
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| Education Statistics of California Data Set |
As an alumnus from Moreno Valley High School, I also know that our music program was folded in 2004 due to budget cuts. Is there a direct correlation between the two? Well, looking at a comparison to MVHS’s rival high school Valley View, which to this day has a growing music program that produces CDs for a changing band (as students graduate the band changes) by the name of The Raspberry Blues, we can see the API for VVHS is much higher than that of MVHS.
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| Education Statistics of California Data Set |
Continuing the comparison of Moreno Valley High and Valley View High, we can see that with a statewide poll of educational ranking, Valley View ranks far higher than that of Moreno Valley.
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| Education Statistics of California Data Set |
Although the data is not with direct evaluation of a music program, other studies have shown that the inclusion of a music curriculum can increase the way in which teens approach their education. According to Cohen-Taylor, when teachers include popular song lyrics into their reading materials, students approached other printed materials in a positive manner; whereas, students, without a learning through lyrics curriculum approached other reading materials with apathy. Furthermore, a study by McTeer and Bailey found that students improved their attitude towards history and subject matter when correlated with popular music (Eady, & Wilson, 2007).
Needless to say, I am an advocate of combining educational efforts with the inspiration of music. The idea that creativity alone can be increased, just through a set of headphones and a musician from one of the greatest art forms, inclines me to believe that success is driven through great music. Many, if not all career paths have some sort of creative influence to be the best, most cutting edge and influential within a respective field of work. With music comes creativity… why question that?
A song that has had great influence on my life…
The Spill Canvas - Appreciation and the Bomb
If there's one thing I've learned // it's that we never feel the heat until we get burned // but we try so hard not to die // sometimes we forget to appreciate life
Come what may,
Lindsay Taylor
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That data from this blog can be found in the Education Statistics of California and the following cited works:
Eady, I.L., & Wilson, J.D. (2007). Restructuring music's role in the middle school curriculum. College Student Journal
Glenn, K. (1992). The benefits of music education--now and in the future. NASSP Bulletin, 76(544), 1-4.
Shaw, G.L., Rauscher, F.H., & Ky, K.N. (1994). Music and spatial task performance: a casual relationship. Proceedings of the American psychological association 102nd annual convention (pp. 365-611). Los Angeles: http://www.burchschool.com/musicstf.html.
