Kindergarten through Medical School: Music and Arts Education

Music and arts coursework is being used as a necessary balance to increase the observation and empathy skills of medical students.

Harvard Medical School joins a growing list of institutions that are incorporating the study of the arts into their curriculum.  Research has found medical student empathy to decrease through the course of a medical degree (Hojat et al, 2009), while it has been shown that empathy in fact improves patient outcomes (Canale et al., 2012). “Besides building empathetic skills, Harvard’s arts program aims to help students process the human tragedies they are exposed to in medical school, said Dr. Lisa Wong, a pediatrician and musician who is helping to lead the initiative” (Bailey, 2015).  In other words, music and arts coursework is being used as a necessary balance to increase the observation and empathy skills of medical students. 

Harvard, Yale, and other top-tier institutions, in the interest of improving the human condition, are incorporating research-informed arts education.  As Dan Pink (TMEA, 2009) has said, “We don’t need doctors to be vending machines for right answers, we need doctors who can ask the right questions.”  Reframed for K-12 education, this could be stated: We don’t need students to be vending machines for right answers; we need students who can ask questions, think, and collaborate.  This article presents a quasi-review of the literature, including public opinion data, music education through the lens of high-stakes accountability, and an argument for strengthening music and arts curricula as part of a robust liberal arts education. 

Ask the Right Questions

“Numbers speak loudly” (Hart, 2003, p. 41).  Given today’s climate of high-stakes accountability coupled with diminishing resources, allocations or investments in programs cannot be left to chance.  Additionally, decisions regarding school resources should be supported by stakeholders.  Included next are public opinion data, as well as other findings from polling the American citizenry regarding music education. According to a 2003 poll by the Gallup Organization, 95% of Americans consider music to be an integral part of a well-rounded education, and 93% believe that schools should offer music education as part of the regular curriculum.  Nearly four in five (79%) even say that music education should be mandated for every student in school. (Lyons, 2003, para. 2)

Additional survey data include music education as it relates to level of education attained and income.  In 2007, a Harris Poll revealed that: Two-thirds (65%) of those with a high school education or less participated in music, compared to four in five (81%) with some college education and 86% of those with a college education.  The largest group to participate in music, however, is those with a postgraduate education, as almost nine in ten (88%) of this group participated while in school. (Harris Poll, 2007, para. 3) This same poll found that Americans with higher household incomes were more likely to have had exposure to music education (Harris Poll, 2007).

A 2014 Harris Poll found that three out of four adults were involved in a music program while attending school. Additionally, respondents felt that “music education can provide more than just learning how to sing and/or play an instrument.  Music education can also provide various skills that people may need for success in a job or career outside of music” (Harris Poll, 2014, The skills music education, para. 1).

These national surveys demonstrate wide-ranging support for music education.  Are policymakers at the state and local levels asking the right questions, or are they perhaps operating under presuppositions regarding how their stakeholders wish resources to be allocated?

Problems Associated With High-Stakes-Driven Curriculum Standardization

Parsons (2009) studied beliefs and perceptions for declining administrative and public support for public school arts programs.  He revealed that the most frequently cited reasons for the decline of public-school arts were the one-two punch of testing and accountability.  Specifically, Parsons found “accountability to district, state, and federal education standards were major reasons for the lack of administrative support for arts education” (p. 76).

In response to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), students who did not pass the state assessment had an elective taken away and replaced with a test remediation course intended to improve scores for the school (Beveridge, 2010).  Pulling students out of electives for test preparation and remediation is also standard practice.  Beveridge (2010) notes, “in a class such as a music ensemble, in which each student relies on the others for success, this kind of policy sabotages the success of the entire group, particularly if students are pulled out or added midyear” (p. 5).  “Further research is required to determine the effectiveness of academic remediation held during the instructional day that thereby denies arts instruction to students.  The practice of recommending that students devote more time to English and math instead of music should be evaluated” (Baker, 2012, p. 17). 

Elpuse (2014) studied public school music enrollment from 1982 to 2009.  He found that NCLB “exacerbated the preexisting underrepresentation in music courses of Hispanic students, English language learners, and students with Individualized Education Plans” (p. 215).  English language learners (ELLs) have been a specific area of research in terms of participation in scholastic music ensembles.  Lorah, Sanders, and Morrison (2014) present that “lack of opportunity—not lack of interest—explains the gap between ELL and non-ELL music participation that has been observed in prior research” (p. 234).

Narrowing the curriculum to facilitate test-focused education has meant neglecting historic and contemporary educational aims (Joseph, 2011).  Curriculum standardization and the resulting reduction of teacher autonomy are evident in today’s textbooks, which provide page-by-page directions for instructors to follow (Joseph, 2011).  In addition, high-stakes testing forces teachers to employ methods that they know to be contrary to student-centered best practices (Au, 2011).

Munson noted that as we move ever more toward skill-based, content-free educational methodologies and continue to carve time out of the school day for increased exposure to core courses, we put our students and nation at a greater disadvantage.  “No nation that scores competitively…puts skills before content or focuses chiefly on reading and math” (Munson, 2011, p. 14).  

Public school education can be transformed by strengthening music and arts education, and the findings and observations elucidate institutional barriers.  Schools that “include the arts, that offer opportunities for students to create and make sense of works of art, set the stage for dedication and engagement across all subjects as well as the courage and perseverance needed to stay in school” (Davis, 2012, p. 28).  In other words, arts education can benefit all subjects while providing students with a reason to attend school. 

Music Education: Liberal Arts Lens

Jackson-Hayes (2015), Associate Professor of Chemistry at Rhodes College, insists “if American STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics] grads are going to lead the world in innovation, then their science education cannot be divorced from the liberal arts” (p. 1).  Music has been a component of a liberal arts education since the medieval university (Lapp, 2012).  Music education as part of the system-wide benefits of high-quality fine arts programs is an essential facet of a well-rounded liberal arts education.  

Rather than a snapshot of one test on one day, success in music and arts is a result of a body of work: a portfolio of tangible achievement.  In contrast to the “law of the school,” where cramming and regurgitation are tacitly—and sometimes purposefully—promoted, Covey (2003) describes natural processes taking their due time as the “law of the farm” (p. 81).  The arts help to break the law of the school and institute a new set of rules, including reward through relationships. “Integrating arts-based creative processes into teaching and learning will enhance student mastery of critical content while it also supports the emotional and physical needs of our children” (Creedon, 2011, p. 36).  The arts help schools to put relationships at the center of study, making education a more meaningful and rich experience (Nathan, 2008).  

Arts can provide stabilization for education based on personalization, building achievement by discovering the individual talents of children, and placing them in an environment where they want to learn and can find their true passions (Robinson, 2009).  As public education increasingly focuses on achievement defined exclusively by correct answers, arts education gains value by helping students to ask the right questions (Pink, 2006).  “A reflective, pragmatic liberal education is our best hope of preparing students to shape change and not just be victims of it” (Roth, 2014, p. 10).  Just because something can be measured—such as a standardized academic curriculum—does not make it more valuable (Davis, 2012). 

“The arts teach many of the skills, aptitudes, and values that are at the heart of America’s growing ‘creative’ economy” (Robinson, 2006, p. 3).  The research and conclusions by Eric Jensen (2001, 2009), Daniel Pink (2006, 2012), and Sir Ken Robinson (2009) are clear: systemic arts education helps to build a better brain with transferable life skills, and the benefits of arts education are a pragmatic necessity for the future of improving the human condition.  

Conclusion

By asking stakeholders what they want and understanding the impact of high-stakes accountability on student access to high-quality music and arts education, decision-makers can be better informed.  It is up to music and arts advocates to consistently present this message.  As mentioned in music education circles, advocacy is part of an exercise regimen, not an emergency room visit.

Additionally, the advocate must convey information in a manner that invites conversation and ultimately fosters ownership among all parties—building consensus rather than erecting barriers.  This formula will help ensure that every child across America has access to and the opportunity to participate in active music and art making in their scholastic environment (Music for All, 2018)—from Kindergarten through Medical School.

References

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