Even though a music educator wants to advance their education in a program to get their online master of music in music education, they also recognize that teaching music goes far beyond teaching the rudiments and having fun in the classroom. So many of our youth are troubled today, as is evidenced by the amount of crime and drugs rampant on our streets, that something must be done. Music is a way to promote health and healing, especially of the mind and heart. If you are a student pursuing an online MMME degree, you are to be applauded for your efforts on behalf of young people across the nation.
A Look at One Crisis No One Foresaw
As an example of just how troubled many of our youth truly are, look at what happened in the days and weeks that followed the presidential election of 2016. Kids of all ages were out on the streets rioting and crying out “Not my president! Not my president!” and breaking everything in their path. Was there any real reason to react in this way? Could our educators and school counselors have given them anything besides Play-Doh as therapy to ease their troubled minds?
While many people don’t understand why kids were so overwrought, never having voted and not really understanding how our Republic operates, others understood that their behavior was a symbol of what is going on within society. We are a nation that has been wounded and, unfortunately, those wounds have been passed down to our youth. Instead of giving them what amounts to worry beads in the form of Play-Doh, perhaps we should have piped music into their midst to elicit higher emotions than violence and hate.
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Music Heals the Emotions
According to research cited in Psychology Today, music does have a healing effect on the emotions. Some of the emotions which music therapists have successfully treated with music include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Schizophrenia
And, that is really just the beginning of the healing power of music on the emotions. Also, research shows that music improves our ability to collect socially and why so many of our young follow fads in music. They have favorite bands, favorite singers, favorite genres, and they connect socially on social media, which is indicative to just how significant music can be when dealing with youth with social disorders.
An educator seeking an online master of music in music education degree does so much more than teach our children the fundamentals of music. As an outreach to our troubled youth, music can promote healing and wellness in ways no other therapy can hope to accomplish. If ever there was doubt about continuing music within the classroom amid budget cuts and the need to offer a range of other subjects, music should never be considered as one of those ‘cuts.’ Kids enjoy music, learn from it and are often healed in ways in which we are just now beginning to understand. When it comes to helping kids get in touch with their inner self, music is going to be your number one tool. Music is the ultimate healer in our classrooms today.
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