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Background Music In the Classroom
- 1. Background Music In theClassroom ZACHARY TIRRELL
- 2. What effect doesmusic have on us? We listen to music to relax, to help us think, to celebrate, and to grieve. Our emotional responses to music have been noted in literature, poetry, and drama. The power of music to evoke an emotional response is used by advertising companies, film directors, and mothers singing their babies to sleep (qtd. In Foran 51).
- 3. My Thesis: MusicBeing Played in the Background Music being played in the background of a classroom will improve the teachers’ moral and create a much more effective learning environment by helping increase memory, accelerate learning, improve reading, decrease stress and tension, cover up distractions, and improve test scores.
- 4. Music And Memory (Counterargument) One researcher named Nick Perham, a lecturer in School of Heath Sciences at the University of Wales Institute, argues that music being played during a classroom session can interfere with short-term memory performance. Perham concluded with his studies that “. . . listening to liked or disliked music was exactly the same, and both were worse than the quiet control condition,” He says. “Both impaired performance on serial- recall tasks” (qtd. In Cutler NP).
- 5. Music and MemoryRebuttal 1. A study performed by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder found that listening to slow Baroque music alone during class speeded up learning by 24% and increased memory retention by 26%. 2. Levitin’s studies proved that a majority of non-musicians were able to sing songs within 4% of its original tempo. Because music uses so many parts of the brain. This in effect increases memory. 3. Foran argues that music affects the brain more than any other single activity and especially for little children. Music helps students to access parts of their brains that function poorly or not at all.
- 6. Counterargument and Rebuttal ReadingComprehension Perham, in one of his more recent studies expresses that reading while listening to music, especially music with lyrics, impairs comprehension In other studies it has been found that using music to teach reading motivates and increases the reading ability of students. Furthermore, research demonstrates that being exposed to music helps develop auditory and visual skills needed for reading. One teacher stated “not only do I rely on music to enhance children’s reading and math skills, but I also depend on it to enrich all learning that takes place in my classroom” (White 6).
- 7. Does music helpstudents to concentrate? One common complaint that many teachers have against background music in the classroom is that music being played in the classroom would distract them and their students from getting their work done. As Kevin White Master of Education in Divergent Learning Columbia College states, It helps cover up distractions that students may have in a classroom setting, like clocks, pencils tapping, and chairs/desks moving (White 7). White also comments on a study made by Ghassemi where he states that, “music functions like white noise, drowning our distractions” (qtd. In White 7).
- 8. Decreased Stress andTension Students are often stressed especially students in High Schools and Colleges around the world. Stress will deter any good student from getting his or her work done. Listening to music during times of great stress will largely decrease their stress levels and will make them more productive. Music has a tremendous relaxing effect on the mind and the body. As Collingwood states, the type of music that is listened to can have many beneficial effects on peoples’ physiological functions by slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the level of stress hormones (Collingwood NP).