The Decline of Music Education essay

As a fact, there is a lack of music education in our school for young children these days. Children need music education to enrich their young minds, to explore the world of music, as there are many useful things that can be perceived with the help of music, people can understand more and just enjoy music. As stated by many researchers, classical music is very useful for people’s health; it also makes people think and dream.
The problem is that some money that is spent elsewhere for other things, and there is not enough funds to spend on music education or arts education. As a rule, there are other ways to do budget cuts than to cut music programs from schools. Although the budget cuts are sometimes needed for certain things, it should be taken into consideration that education is one of the most important things that children should get properly, as well as music education, that can develop children’s talents, their dreams and their outlook.
California’s music education budget cuts could have been very urgent and obligatory, but it should be noted that it is never late to change the opinion and to make some other options to implement music education into the schools. As a fact, California is seen as a model for cuts in other states, which provide much of government spending for education and health care. Some teachers cannot be kept for another semester; the majority of them are the teachers of music. Some teachers advise to move the lessons of music to the support classes, where the children are supposed to help make up for their test scores. Consequently, some students are unable to have music classes at all.
The education is budgetary, that is why budget situation is impacting schools’ education programs. The time of crises influences all spheres of life and some things should be postponed or denied. The lessons cannot be cut for one or two years, as the cuts are long term. Probably, it is considered that music is not the most important subject and children can get complete and quality education without it, but other have another opinion. Currently, music is recognized as one of the core subjects by the National Board of Education by the federal government and it is not being tested. Some students think that “if music is one of the core subjects, why would we want to outsource that?” And children also agree that there are other ways of teaching music.
Despite the problems, in some schools in California there are electronic music courses, but the classics should be definitely taught in schools, as children claim. Samuel Hope, the executive director of the National Association of Schools and Music, states: “we have five ways to communicate and organize thought and knowledge. The first one is letters and words, which is our language. And the second is numbers and symbols, which is mathematics. And – But the next three are still images, which is art in architecture and design, moving images which is dance and film, and abstract sound which is music”. That is why it is essential to know how to read music and to sing music and to play music. Education would be a difficult process without the touch of music. Science, music, art- all these subjects, that are not on the test, they are not considered very much obligatory and very important these days. The world is always in a hurry and people try to depict the most important things exactly for them, forgetting about the “food for soul”, and studying only what will be on the test. It is a fact that the students who study the arts do better in their other subjects. Paying the proper attention to such details makes people think more thoroughly about the process and effectiveness of education these days.
Unfortunately, the situation shows that some school districts across the state will have to delay funds for textbooks, increase class sizes, and cut seven days off the school year. Teachers’ protests and boycotts are the results of cutting the funds. Some people consider that public education should be untouched, as it is the basis of education, of the first steps of children in life, of getting new indispensable experience and skills. The solution to the problem can include the search of new methods of education children, the search of support from different institutions and optimism considering the current situation.
Psychologists say that musical development can have a powerful impact on the formation of the child at school. Through music the emotional sphere is being formed, bringing up the sensitivity to beauty and improved thinking. That is why it is important as early as possible to show a child the world of music. If a person with musical activities will form musical aesthetic consciousness, then it will wonderfully affect his subsequent development and overall spiritual formation.