In this difficult recession, cutbacks are being made in all aspects of our life. One of the areas where important elements have been reduced or eliminated in is our school districts. The first things to be eliminated typically are the non-core classes like art, music and physical education. These are all important subjects that young children need in order to be completely stimulated for their minds and their bodies. The problem now happens that only the children that can afford to take music education or to purchase a student violin or an electric violin will be able to experience the several benefits that learning how to play an instrument offers. Because of this, several groups across the country have formed to try to help kids to have access to the arts or to try to bring back the arts to schools and why it is so essential.
Learning how to read music and playing a musical instrument has been shown to help children academically later on. There have been studies to support this and state that kids who are involved in music and learn to play an instrument at a young age, will perform better mathemtically than students that have had no music lessons or training. This is why it is so important to have this offered to all kids, not only the fortunate who can afford private lessons.
One example of a group that is supporting music education in schools is known as AMC which stands for American Music Conference and is a national non-profit group that is spreading the word on the importance of music education. Several well known musicians have supported this particular group like Nick Lachey, Run DMC and a lot of actors and actresses. This group has worked together with Teen people magazine to have a big artist of the year event acknowledging artists in the music industry and brings awareness to the fact that music education in schools in important.
In addition to several various bigger groups that are supported by various celebrities, several lesser known grassroot advocacy groups have formed trying to promote music in schools too. One such group is known as MusicFriends and was started by parents and a small community that wanted to support music in their local school system. They are supported by MENC which is The National Association for Music Education that started in the early 1900’s and promotes the neccessity of music education in schools.
This group states that music was stated as a core subject in the No child left behind education Act of 2002 and how valuable it is and should not be eliminated from schools attempting to make budget cuts.
Whether it is a large national group or a small group in your community fighting to maintain music in your schools, the same message is being promoted. Music education helps children, particularly the younger ones in elementary school and school systems should think about it as important as reading or math when making budget cuts.
