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Music Education Links to Academic Achievement

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micronesia United States24768 Posts January 15 2011 05:29 GMT #1 I was reading an entry in a newspaper by a local school superintendent about the positive role music education plays in students' lives and I thought I would share it: http://www.antonnews.com/levittowntribune/opinion/12075-from-the-desk-of-dr-charles-murphy-december-3-2010.html Here is the man himself: http://www.islandtrees.org/main/districtinformation/superintendent.php An excerpt from his entry in the newspaper: "The research shows students participating in music education programs demonstrate far greater academic success than non-music students." Of course the question remains... does their participation in music improve their performance... or does their tendency towards good performance also steer them towards music?

Loser777 1931 Posts January 15 2011 05:37 GMT #2 That's not the case at my school-where band//marching band takes up so much time//class space that the truly academically successful are not in music education. It's possible to have some of both, but if you want that 4.7GPA, it's impossible to do that with band on your schedule.

Hakker United States1360 Posts January 15 2011 05:51 GMT #3 Guess something never clicked for me XD. Ive been musically inclined my entire life but I'm never able to bring myself to put forth the effort to exceed in school. I personally believe that there's 2 main types of musicians, those who are all about the theory and the rigid structures of music are basically the kind he's referring to here in this article. Others simply have a natural affinity for just knowing what sounds good. Some of the best musicians I know don't even know how to read sheet music (which, arguably, is becoming less and less of an importance).

Myrmidon United States9452 Posts January 15 2011 06:38 GMT #4 Based off of anecdotal evidence, I'd say it's more correlation (self-selection) than causation. I play in the band and orchestra at university (a ~18,000 students school with no real music major program), though my major has nothing to do with music. Parents that encourage their kids to do such things usually have more resources (instruments cost money), maybe want them to be more cultured, and overall tend to have higher expectations for them. Kids sticking with such programs are at least somewhat dedicated at something that requires patience and some amount of hard work. These things should all correlate with higher academic achievement on average. One benefit my band director believes in is that people with years of music education have trained up a level of focus beyond what the average student has attained. I'm not quite sure if I believe that 100%, but it's plausible to me.

micronesia United States24768 Posts January 15 2011 15:35 GMT #5 Really? Nobody? Lol oh well. But.... yeah. I'm definitely going more with correlation... although I've heard that in general training in music can help develop parts of the brain and improve performance in some areas like math.

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