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The Many Benefits of Music Education [Infographic]

Research abounds regarding the incredible benefits of music education. The University of Florida has put together an infographic called “Why Music? The Many Benefits of a Musical Education.”Among the benefits listed

  • Benefits to the brain and general learning skills
    The benefits listed include verbal intelligence, reading skills, fine motor skills, abstract thinking, vocabulary acquisition, and memory.
  • Benefits to academic achievement
    These include better listening ability, higher SAT scores, higher academic grades, better science skills, greater percentage of extracurricular participation, higher GPA, greater likelihood of enrollment in moderately- and highly-selective universities, much lower dropout rates, and these gains are more pronounced in low-income students.
  • Benefits to life skills and personal enrichment
    These include helping students become more employable, participate in the political process, volunteer and engage their community, have higher self-confidence, and persevere.

Benefits-of-Music-Education-Infographic
Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.

Joel Wagner
Joel Wagner (<strong><a href="http://www.twitter.com/sywtt">@sywtt</a></strong>) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. <strong><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/">So You Want To Teach?</a></strong> is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.
http://www.SoYouWantToTeach.com

2 thoughts on “The Many Benefits of Music Education [Infographic]

  1. Can we please stop parading around these tired correlations between music education and other stuff? I think it hinders our credibility to imply that music education makes kids score higher on SATs, do well in English, and vote. All these (including involvement in music) are typical of well-educated upper middle class children, and say nothing about the actual point of music education: Music.

    1. Hey Jon,

      I can see where you are coming from, and I believe there is great value in music for its aesthetic purpose alone. But I believe that simply leaving it at that and disregarding the other benefits that music offers does arts education a disservice.

      I have taught for over a decade in low socioeconomic schools with high ELL populations. The schools have provided most of the band instruments for the students with minimal costs involved (and we have always been happy to work with parents or even eliminate financial constraints where needs arise). With this being said, my anecdotal experience agrees with these claims. I have seen students make huge gains academically as a partial result of their involvement in music.

      I have seen students gain music-reading fluency in beginning band that has helped improve their reading comprehension. I have seen students finally get fractions based on class discussions of rhythmic duration, sixteenth notes, and dotted quarter notes. Of course, I take a very academic approach when teaching music concepts.

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