A creative workforce does not simply emerge; it needs to be developed, encouraged and supported.
MLC Academy has been teaching people music since 2007. The pursuit is often highly individualistic and the journey is complex.
Music education has been described as “patchy at best” (Henley 2011) and funding for the arts is suffering across the world. And yet there is an increase in studies reporting that music is good for our emotional and intellectual development. So why is there such a disconnect?
We are told often that learning to play music is good for us. It’s true! However, some children receive a poor music educational experience or no access to music education at all.
So what is the purpose of music education?
The benefits of studying music reach far wider than the instrument/s being studied. Studying music has been proven to enhance cognitive skills and academic performance. Music is maths, history and art. The skills learnt are transferable. Those who study music have been proven to have skills such as problem solving, planning and language based reasoning.
Sir Ken Robinson advocates the importance of being creative in this short excerpt.
A creative workforce doesn’t have to be limited to the arts but it is born from them. Creativity exists within science, technology, architecture, teaching, sport and more besides. It is therefore my argument that the purpose of music education is to help prepare an individual for the modern economy because those who can think creatively and with divergence will not only survive, they will thrive.