The Importance Of Music Education In Schools

Music, an art form, shown through an expression like no other, is brought through sound and pitch. As time moves forward, music education weakens, allowing part of our culture to slip through future generations’ fingertips. Since schools’ lack music education, thorough assessment methods also become feeble. Assessment allows schools and students to grow in music, creating strong music programs, while attracting students by engaging needed skills benefiting a child’s future. Music education is not just learning music theory and basic skills, which many programs forget. Creativity is a tremendous aspect in music. Developing a consciousness of deficient, even nonexistent, music programs and their facets allowed music journals globally to bring

Student assessment and assessment used in class permit reoccurring issues to dissolve, bringing classrooms beneficial attributes, only if the assessment used is favorable to music educators and students. In a multitude of music journals for educators and other literature the assessment strategies found are not applied in classrooms, showing a loss of communication between informers and educators. In Research & Issues in Music Education’s research they found the top five “frequently used” list, “1- Grading based upon Participation, 2- Grading based upon Effort, 3- Individual Performances (using informal observation), 4- Group Performances, 5- Grading based upon Behavior,” (McQuarrie, 2013, p. 7). While in the top five strategies in literature are, “1- Individual Performance (using a rubric or rating scale), 2- Projects (such as compositions), 3- Formative Assessment Strategies, 4- Music Software, 5- Critical Thinking Prompts,” (McQuarrie, 2013, p. 7). The only similar top five assessment strategy is individual performance, but the way performance is assessed are not the same. The individual performance assessment in the “frequently used” top five is unreliable because it stands from memory, and each student could vary, even if they are as good as one another. The top five “frequently used” also had a high number of strategies that are not music based, nor stand

Art is thought as a creative manner of expression, but in music a main issue rising through many schools is an insufficient amount of creativity. While many view music as creative itself, many professionals in the field bring into view the misunderstanding of the term creativity. “Hargreaves, an English music psychologist writes that, ‘Creativity is one of the most complex, mysterious, and fascinating aspects of human behavior’. Kneller, an early writer on creativity research, pointed out that verbal skills or quickness of mind are often associated with creativity but do not define it. Albert added that giftedness is no predictor of creativity either. Talent and creativity also present problems. Csikszentmihályi argued that talent, ‘focuses on an innate ability to do something very well” which may not be creative’” (as quoted Burke, 2014, pp. 1-2). As many more music professionals express their insight, it becomes easier to see the lacking creativity in music classrooms. In further exploration, watching music educators in action, we can look at reasons creativity is absent. Many educators follow through each day using a lesson plan. Yes, learning is important, but teachers in music courses are instructing students on what exactly to do with the music they are learning, or the technique, leaving out students input, ideas, and expression of the piece. “the concept of music as