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Tourney Round 2, Debate No. 12: Art and/or Music are Important in Grade School

Throughout this debate, I have repeatedly stressed how music and art are simply not necessary in grade school education. And I wish to end what has been a spirited and excellent debate with the following four points. 1. Art and music do not prepare a person for the workforce, which is the goal of the educational system. 2. Music has not been proven to raise children's IQ's. 3. Curricular music and art will not help those who are gifted - the Renoirs and Beethovens of our age. 4. Art and music achieve exactly the same thing as reading, writing, and arithmetic, but without actually learning the reading, writing, and arithmetic part. My first point is that art and music are not needed by the workforce. For the 97% of the workforce that doesn't go into art or music, it will not be a requirement. Please do not let my opponent belittle this point. Physics, Geometry, and Algebra are all required of those entering the workforce. Art is not. My opponent is right. Employers are looking for a good, well-rounded high school education. A well-rounded education that does not in any way have to include art or music, according to state standards. My opponent continually says that we should not remove art or music from school syllabi, but he fails to realize that these courses are not ON the school syllabi established by the state. My next point deals with an argument that my opponent hinged much of his final round on, though he included it only as an afterthought to his conclusion in his second round. My opponent says that music raises children's IQ. I disagree. Now, hear me out. I know that it's practically common knowledge that music increases IQ. "Mozart makes you smart," after all, and we play Bach concertos for our babies all the time. But let us look at these studies that my opponent points to. The study operates on a survey. The surveyed people indicate whether or not they play a musical instrument, and for how long, and then they take an IQ test. Many people have looked at the results, noted that, on average, the more musical people have higher scores, and made the argument that more music makes a person more intelligent. After all, what else could it be? Well, read the explanation that the authors of the study cited think cause it. "Schellenberg isn't sure why music lessons are associated with higher IQ and stronger academic performance, but he has several theories: Children with higher IQs have more cognitive ability to handle the mental challenges of music lessons and school, so music lessons probably exaggerate that advantage. School itself boosts IQ, so the school-like features of music lessons such as learning to read music might also lead to improved intellectual functioning, Schellenberg speculates." So what is it that makes students in music classes more intelligent? Schellenberg doesn't hypothesize that music is what makes them more intelligent. He says that it is the school-like setting of music courses which boosts IQ. And if a music class will boost IQ, how much more will another course (like science or math) boost it? You see, IQ isn't raised by more music classes - it's just that people who are, on average, more intelligent, take more music courses and stick with the music courses they take. I'm willing to bet if we took another survey, students who had more science or math would also have an even more marked difference in IQ's than that caused by an increase in art education. But where could we find students like that? Hmm... Oh, I don't know. Maybe Japan? And if, as my opponent claims, it is IQ that we should be attempting to raise, then aren't we shooting ourselves in the feet when we teach classes that don't raise IQ as much as a class like math or science? Something to think about. One of the assumptions my opponent makes is that music and art classes will greatly benefit parents with truly gifted children. But do you honestly think that Renoir is worse off because he didn't have an in-school doodling time? Or that Mozart would have been so much better if he had only played the kazoo in grade school? The fact is, most of the great artists and musicians of the world didn't learn their talents in grade school. Musical prodigies are born with an innate sense of music - they don't get it from early teaching, but from within themselves. The great artists of the Renaissance and the Classical period of art didn't learn their techniques from their fourth-grade teachers, but through apprenticeships to the grandmasters of the time. Those who truly want to learn music or art, those who are truly driven by it, will get their education, with or without formal instruction or rich parents. Jimi Hendrix was self-taught, using a one-stringed guitar that his father found for him in a dumpster. Do you think that learning five or six chords in eighth grade (as I was required to do) would have made him a better musician? Third, there is something with which I wholeheartedly agree with my opponent on. In the last round, he wrote, "art and music are merely more esoteric ways of achieving the same goal as reading, writing, and arithmetic." And though he was doubtless just trying to stress the importance of art and music, I urge you to look at what I have said throughout this debate. The skills and tools we learn in art class can be learned in our other classes. And in these other classes, we can learn much more than just how to touch a crayon to a piece of paper, but in addition, we learn about history, science, language, and math. School curriculum should not be divided into right-brained art classes, and left-brained math or science classes. By doing so, we actually handicap our creative minds by hindering their ability to attain the skills they will need in order to be successful in life. The skills that are actually required and needed; the skills that are (I think I've probably said this at least twenty times now) significant, consequential, and important. Instead, we should integrate both right- and left-brained teaching methods into our traditional core subjects. My opponent is right. We do not learn the same things from creating a papier-m�ch� volcano as we do when drawing while listening to Beethoven. You see, in the first example, we learned how a volcano worked. In the second, we developed our Crayola stick-figure-dragon-drawing abilities. I can draw a mean Trogdor. But in the meantime, cast your vote for Con. Because art and music classes just aren't important in grade school. Once again, I thank my opponent for this excellent round.