Have you ever been in class & you weren’t able to focus? Every day, students have trouble focusing on their classes; & there’s a simple fix for this. Students should be allowed to listen to music while in class. Listening to music can greatly benefit a students learning by helping them focus or blocking out distractions. In the following paragraph’s, I will tell you exactly why students should be allowed to listen to music while in class.
Music could get a student into a flow state. A flow state is when you become so focused on a specific task, that it is the only thing you can think about. Listening to music could potentially make it easier to achieve a flow state. Getting into a flow state while doing classwork could help you finish quicker or have higher accuracy on question due to your increased sense of focus. As someone at safesupportivelearning.ed.gov says “Did you know that exposure to music can improve learning & increase positive classroom atmosphere?”
Some people would try to argue that music would serve as a distraction to someone trying to work, but the fact is that that’s just simply not true. Several studies have proven that listening to music while working actually increases productivity & the amount of work that gets done. You could also try to make the argument that music with lyrics, especially if it’s telling a story, would be distracting; as someone at smartclassroommanagement.com tried to with the direct quote of: “But students aren’t listening to Chopin or Beethoven. They’re listening to music with lyrics. Lyrics are mean to speak to the viewer. They’re mean to tell a story and elicit emotion. They are, by nature, distracting.” I will now proceed to debunk this claim through a personal story. A few months ago, likely in November or December, I was in class. We were doing some kinda of work sheet, but I am unable to remember what it was about. I was having trouble focusing & getting my work done, so I put my earbuds in & turned on my favorite album of all time, Hawaii Part II by Miracle Musical. This album tells a story about Love & Death through lyrics; but instead of being distracted by said lyrics, I was actually able to focus now that there was external stimulation.
Classrooms & by further extension, Schools, are high stress environments that often give little to no reward for completing tasks. A student who’s stressed would likely have a harder time focussing on their work as opposed to a student who isn’t stressed. Without something to help stimulate them, they may have incredible trouble getting motivated to do the work. A direct quote from an article hosted on hwehsgeneralconsensus.com helps support this claim: “Music is one of the key sources of reducing overall stress. When working on a large assignment that’s due the next day, high schoolers often cram the work in and try to complete it in a small amount of time. Music playing while doing this has demonstrated a better work ethic in a short time.” If a student with for example ADHD wasn’t able to focus without external stimulation like music, they simply wouldn’t be able to do their work. It’s not a factor about being lazy or not wanting to do the work, it’s about not being motivated to do the work in general. ADHD is a complicated neurological issue; if someone with ADHD is unmotivated to do a task even if they know they can & should, they simply won't be able to do it since, in their mind, they won't get anything out of it. Or say perhaps a student has autism, where they aren’t high enough on the spectrum to need help–yet they are high enough on the spectrum to where it affects doing certain tasks.
In conclusion, students should be able to listen to music in class. It is proven that listening to music while doing tasks can greatly improve a student, or really anyone’s focus. Workplaces have allowed employees to listen to music or even have videos playing in the background while they work for a while now, so it only makes sense that school would allow students to listen to music too. Although, I don’t believe that students should be allowed to have videos playing in the background as well, because someone could easily exploit it & watch videos instead of doing their work. Hopefully, sometime soon in the future schools will allow students to listen to music in class.