Music is a huge part of our modern culture. One might take for granted that music education would be in our schools’ curriculums without question. Surprisingly, it does not actually have a very secure place in a surprising number of schools in the U.S. Fortunately, many people see the importance of music education and currently advocate for it so that it does not lose its place in their school. Peter Greene, an English Teacher and tailgate trombonist who has written numerous articles on the faults with America’s education system, believes that the ways many people go about defending music education are not the best.
In his article “Stop ‘Defending’ Music Education”, published in The Huffington Post, Greene criticizes people who try to defend music education by arguing how it helps students “do better in other classes”. Greene holds people should
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Near the beginning, he asks, “How many hours in a row do you ever go without listening to music?” (Greene). This question attempts to connect with the reader, and to make them feel personally the relevance of his article. Greene also connects to the reader by using informal language throughout the article, while still keeping a more professional voice. This makes the reader feel more at ease, and less like they are reading a scholarly article, or something extremely solemn. This makes his paper easy to read, and makes his arguments more likely to convince a wider audience than it would otherwise. This is good because most of his readers are likely to be average people, people who probably do not want to use brain power to try to understand a formal paper that they might not even agree with in the end. According to a handout on the Saylor Academy website, informal language draws the reader in because it looks friendly and gives the reader the impression that the author is in agreement with him or her (“Persuasive Techniques”