Why are music classes mandatory subjects in schools? They really aren’t as beneficial as people believe they are. Music classes shouldn’t be required because they’re replaceable, unnecessary, and sometimes harmful to students who don’t want to take them. All of these cancel out any “benefits” that mandatory music classes have. Electives are fine, but as mandatory classes, they’re either worthless or harmful.
Music classes serve no purpose in schools and are essentially replaceable. This is because most adults either forget how to play their instruments or never use it in real life unless it’s part of a career or passion. What’s the use of knowledge that fades away and makes no contribution? A newrepublic.com editor surveyed adults who had
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This is far from the truth. For one, music doesn’t cause any changes to your brain that “make you smarter”. A Harvard University study finds that the widely accepted claim of “Music makes you smarter” is actually false, because the cognitive benefit of music was either insignificant or non-existent. Boston college psychology professor Ellen Winner backs this up by saying that trying to justify music by saying it will make you good at math is misguided. This proves that the claim most commonly used by supporters of music classes holds very little water. On top of that, the so-called benefits of music only take place if you’re especially interested in music. If you’re not, music classes can actually cause more harm than good. Some may argue that there are no disadvantages to musical education, but that’s a very misguided view to take. Everything has disadvantages, and this is no exception. In a survey taken by New York Times, a high school student named Jacob responded: “I was forced, against my will, to partake in fine arts programs throughout the time I was in elementary school… Considering my past experiences, my opinion is that fine arts should not be required. They should remain purely as electives, available to students that are personally interested in them. I would never wish the stress and hopelessness I felt in fine art programs or classes upon even my worst enemies”. This shows that forcing students to partake in music classes can make them feel like a chore rather than a fun activity, which is really the opposite of what music classes should strive for. Like it or not, the best way to achieve the goal of educating and getting students interested in music is having it as an elective, not a mandatory class that can potentially turn the students off the subject