Music and Education: A Beautiful Mix by Martha-Raye Adjei

Music and Education: A Beautiful Mix

by Martha-Raye Adjei

Music is a beautiful thing. Its rhythm adheres to different styles and cultures. Music allows a person express themselves creatively. Music is a part of us: it shapes the way we think, and becomes a part of us every time we are exposed to it. In addition, a song can stay in the human brain for years at a time. That is why an education, to say the least, should be like a catchy tune that stays with us forever.

What is it that makes a piece of music become a part of someone? In order to improve education in Delaware schools to be “First-state” material, the students will need more of an incentive to open their ears. The more students understand about the world—the more they will understand how much of a luxury an education is in many parts of the world. The more students understand the value of education, the more they will take advantage of its benefits.

Music is a universal language that can reach many cultures. Music inspires in a way that lends itself to the creation of more music. Likewise, education in Delaware should reach every ethnicity, background, and creed equally. Not only should Delaware increase its bilingual staff, it should encourage students who are nonnative English speakers to take regular academic classes. Integrating nonnative speakers in an English classroom setting would allow the student to catch on to the language faster. Keeping ESL (English
as a Second Language) students away from the native English-speaking students takes the student away from the educational benefits of learning a new language. 
There are no standards for the types of music everyone listens to. The types of music in the world are as diverse as the people who listen to it. Similarly, statewide standards for state testing are not an affective way to test a student’s academic success.

One unsuspecting morning, about a hundred high school sophomores were called down to the cafeteria. This was the first time it was ever been done, so no one really knew what it was about. Our administrator, who was proctoring the event, asked what we all had in common. When someone raised their hand and pointed out that all of us were minorities that were supposedly beside the point. The administrator revealed that we were in the cafeteria because all of us had failed at least one section of the DSTP. The point is, that the DSTP is a waste of time. As a student, I am not only saying this because I have taken it since elementary school. The DSTP does not measure success, as progress test should. Improvement should be the key, whether it’s a one to a two, or a three to a four; all improvement should be welcomed and considered.

The negatives of the DSTP outweigh the positives. Successes is measured with a static grading scale, from one to five, five meaning “ unsatisfactory to “highly disguished”effort. At one time, education officials wanted to make the DSTP one of the determinations of what kind of diploma- basic, standard, or distinguished- a student would receive upon graduation. Not only is the test the great stress for students, but is also very length. With its three parts, the students are expected to sit through a test for hours a day, days at a time. 
If Delaware education system wants to see its students succeed, the system should focus more on testing programs such as the NWEA. The NWEA is a computerized test program that adjusts to the student’s ability as the test is taken. The student receives a score based on the student’s progress throughout the school year. The NWEA is much fairer test and represents different levels of change in a student’s academic progress. Unlike the DSTP, the NWEA testing program is not a Pass/Fail test like the DSTP. Tests like the NWEA are better capable of detecting what the student needs to learn. In addition, the NWEA is more of an accurate assessment of a student’s strengths and weaknesses.

In order for Delaware’s education system to represent a global society, the students must be provided with the proper music-making instruments. In other words, schools should focus on career preparation activities that expose the students to different interests and careers while they are still in high school. Field trips, career fairs, and interesting electives are a great way to show a student what his or her options after he or she graduates. According to an organization called Careers in Transition, the average working American will have three to five careers and between 10 to 12 jobs during his or her lifetime. One reason career change is the student learns that he or she does not like the career he or she has chosen. If students are exposed to more options during high school, it would minimize the confusion of the career search. Hopefully, more career exposure in high school would decrease “job-jumping” in the next two or three decades.

A student can learn a new dance only of he or she is familiar with the music his or her body must follow. If the Delaware Board of Education wants to see the students succeed,
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they must provide the “music to listen to”. The district should provide scholarships, or government-paid SAT prepatory classes for all who plan on going through the college admission process. Although many schools provide have an SAT prep class, the class is extremely expensive. Many students do not have the funds or the resources to prepare themselves for the SAT. If the school paid for the SAT classes, the students would have the opportunity to study and receive better scores on the test. Government funding is the type of motivation students need to succeed on national standardized tests such as the SAT.

There is no such thing as “bad music” we all have our tastes and dislikes. Accordingly, saying that the Delaware Education system is “all bad” would be unjust. The Delaware Education system should encourage and continue its student scholarship programs, such as Gear-Up. Gear-Up is an organization that encourages middle and high school students to do well in school and continue to higher education. Not only does Gear-Up encourage the student to succeed academically, it gives the student the opportunity to become a leader in his or her community. Gear-Up stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate programs. Smart Drive is another program that has similar motives. Smart Drive’s goal is to encourage students to make smart choices while behind the wheel of a car. Smart Drive offers prizes, scholarship, and prom funding to any school with the highest scores. Motivating programs such as these help educators and students “write music” together.

Mahthama Ghandi once said, “be the change you want to see in the world”. Talking about reforming education in Delaware schools will get us nowhere. It will take a couple of dedicated hands and feet to prepare the world’s future breadwinners for the globalized community, which in many ways, has already arrived. Education should be like music. The sound tingles the ears, and can stay in ones mind forever. Likewise, an education should be something memorable the student never forgets.
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