Week Twelve

5/30/2019

This week I found that the reading really demonstrated the importance of music in our lives. Music is more accessible than ever and we listen to it wherever we go. The reading states the importance of music to teenagers, who use it as a source of identity, use it to manipulate and reflect moods and emotions and use it as a coping mechanism. Despite this, music education is not experiencing the same popularity, as James highlighted in our lecture. During this lecture we were asked to defend music education and validate it as a significant part of the school curriculum, and while the importance of music is clear to us as music students, we were able to understand that it might seem irrelevant to people focused on achieving results through standardised testing on STEM subjects. However, I think that music education is only further validated by the importance of music in society today, however the ways it is being presented in classrooms might not be suitable or engaging for students. Hallam, S. (2015). The Power of Music. Great Britain: International Music Education Research Centre