It’s 8:00 AM, and you just had a rough night last night, and now you have an hour straight of working alone on your essay in English class. Your teacher doesn’t let you listen to music because they think it’s a distraction, but all you can think about while writing is the rough night before. You only get one paragraph done because you couldn’t focus on the essay, only on the rough night you had before. The kids beside you can’t stop talking to each other, and the rest of the class is loud. Your teacher tells them to be quiet, but the class is still loud. If your English teacher had let you and your classmates listen to music or play music y’all, it would’ve been quieter, and you would’ve been able to focus more and get more than one paragraph done.
When students can listen to music in class, their focus while working is a lot better. Don’t you care if your students are focused while working in class? When teachers aren’t teaching and students are just working alone, teachers should either play music for their students or let their students listen to their music because studies show that students are more focused on work while listening to a form of music. A study at the University of Caen in France found that “students who attended a lecture accompanied by classical music scored significantly higher on a post-lecture test compared to those who heard no music.” Teachers need to let their kids listen to music because if they care about the focus of their students, then they would let them and would see a big difference in their focus.
Do you care about the mental health of your students? If all schools let students listen to music throughout the day, it will help the children cope with anxiety and mental health issues. Some kids need music to help them cope with their anxiety throughout the day. A study done by Cambridge University showed that “hip-hop music provides an uplifting effect on its listeners that can help them accept, manage, and deal better with mental health issues.” Schools need to think about letting students listen to music throughout the day to keep their minds positive and keep them from focusing on other things, and to focus on their schoolwork.
Teachers, do you like it when the room is quiet? Well, if so, then you should let your students listen to music or play music for them while they work alone. Studies show that music adds more “white noise” to the room…which automatically makes the class quieter. Studies have shown that students can focus better with music in the background (in fact, often they don’t even know that anything is playing unless it is a song that they know). And when they focus better, typically, our students are quieter. So, as a teacher, I would assume you would love to play music for your students or let them listen to their music for they to be quiet and make the class quieter.
You as teachers can help your kids focus and help them cope with their mental health. Wouldn’t you love it if your classroom were quieter and your students’ grades went up because of their focus on their work? It only takes letting your students listen to music while working alone, or even just playing silent music out loud for the class.
