Should music be allowed in a classroom? If so, how? Should the teacher play one type of music or should students be allowed to bring their own personal music players? Does music really help stimulate the brain or help some students to focus? After reading some very interesting articles on this subject, I would like to state my point of view.
First of all, being a young adult who has grown up with the ever-changing technology and relying greatly on it, I personally love music and would be lost in this world without it! I listen to music whenever I can, actually I am listening to it write now as a write this blog. While I do feel music can be distracting at times (especially if a really great song comes on), I also think it can be a great asset to education and teaching! One of the articles I read was written by a first year teacher who stumbled upon the rewards of allowing her students to listen to their IPods or MP3 players during work (I believe this shouldn't be allowed before middle school), but there were some rules, such as this was only allowed on Fridays as a reward, they could only have one ear piece in, it had to be quiet enough so no one else could hear it, and it could be taken away at any time the teacher saw fit. Some may wonder about the censorship or monitoring of what the students were listening to and I can understand why that would be of some concern, but first of all, if the students are still pre-teens or early teens, their parents should be monitoring what they are listening to. Second, we cannot control what they are thinking or what they may say outside of the classroom and chances are that they are exposed to and probably use graphic language, so as long as no one else can hear it how is it any different than their thoughts!
Many of teachers who used this practice all agree that it almost instantly stops the talking, horseplaying, and other little things students do to disrupt class. Allowing students to have something to look forward to but something they know can be taken away for misbehavior is great for discipline and classroom management. It is also usually very effective at helping students concentrate and not pay attention to what is going on throughout the classroom. I know when I am studying or doing homework and have a music playing in the background, low enough not to distract me but loud enough for "white noise", I become deep in thought and concentration as to what I am working on and before I know it I am either done or more time has passed than I realized! Of course this idea is not perfect and will not work for every classroom but music has been around for so long and I do not believe we have truly adopted the idea of how powerful it can be! Sure everyone has different tastes in music and what is noise to some may be beautiful to others but it is what the music does to us that is important. I think this is too great of an idea to just forget about, at least we should research it some more!
Thank You!
