You pop your headphones into your ears. Everything drowns out around you. You press play on your favorite music and feel your thoughts move away from all your distractions. You’re in the zone.
No matter the genre, listening to music that you choose is like stepping out of a white room and entering one painted with your favorite colors.
Yet some teachers believe listening to music during class impedes the learning process. Classes like Research Statistics 1, where there’s a short lesson at the beginning and work time for the rest of the class, seem like the perfect time to listen to music and get your work done. However, some teachers at Jefferson don’t allow students to listen to music, saying it prevents student collaboration.
Although this might be true, Research Statistics 1 is a class where people work independently either way. Instead of listening to something they would work better with, they listen to the distracting, definitely not academic, talk of their classmates, all because of a premonition that music and work don’t mix.
The exact opposite has been proven to be true. According to the American Scientific Publishers (ASP), an ECTV machine detected a significant increase in brain activity when subjects had classical, pop, and rock music playing. The area most affected was the right side of the brain, associated with creativity and intuition. If students were allowed to listen to music in every class, they’d be able to visualize concepts much better and establish a consistent rhythm for themselves to remember what they learn.
Listening to music doesn’t have to be all about focus either. It’s a feeling hard to describe, but anyone who’s ever shuffled their playlist and heard the beginning of their favorite song knows it.
Music has the power to make you happier in just a few short minutes, no matter what happened that day or what’s to come in the future. Music blissfully gets rid of distractions when you need it to. I’ve competed in public speaking competitions, I would always walk around with a guitar-heavy song to relax before speaking in front of judges. If you’re nervous about something later in the school day, such as an important test or project, listening to music could be your perfect solution.
The value of a teacher’s lecture and lesson should never be overridden by anything, but when students are left to work by themselves, drifting away from their distractions will improve their work ethic and mood exponentially.