Shawna Ergenbright

October 25, 2016

EDUC 300.6
Make Music Education Completely Inclusive

Across the nation, there are thriving music programs full of successful students that are

receiving the emotional and social attention that they need all the while reaping the benefits of a

well-rounded education. Look closely at those ensembles. How many students with special

needs or disabilities are present in those classrooms? Are there any at all? The Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act was created in 2004 to ensure that all students, especially those with

special needs, received the same well-rounded education that their peers were receiving (Darrow

2014). This law included the classrooms of the arts, but many music educators were hesitant to

allow any student with special needs into their classroom even more-so into one of their

ensembles. Why? It is difficult to teach experienced high school musicians to play music; it is

more difficult to teach a student with special needs to play the same music. A music program

could be cut if the ensembles do not perform well, and that is not a risk many music educators

and directors are willing to take. The No Child Left Behind Act pushed more focus onto

academic achievement causing students with special needs to be drilled even harder to learn the

basic academic skills in their inclusive general academic classrooms. This, in turn, put less

pressure on music educators and ensemble directors to practice inclusion in their own

classrooms. The students who were supposed to be benefitting from inclusion were actually

missing out on the classes they needed the most—art and music.

Music classes offer more than what meets the eye. Many students join an ensemble for

performing opportunities, leadership opportunities, or extracurricular credit. Others join for

passion for music, love of learning, or the joy of being a part of a group. What all of those

students receive that they may not be aware of is emotional support and expression. Music is a
form of art; it allows room for expression and emotion. To an average music student, this

opportunity for expression may or may not matter to them. To a student that struggles with

communicating his or her thoughts or emotions on a daily basis, the opportunity to create sounds

that mirror those thoughts and emotions is life changing. Music gives them a voice, and they do

not even have to know how to read notes on a page for music to meet their emotional needs.

Many of these emotional needs stem from the fact that many of these students are bullied

because of their special needs which often causes them to struggle with self-esteem and

assertiveness (Darrow 2011). There are many opportunities in music classes that can influence

their assertiveness or build their self-esteem back up (2011). These opportunities could include

but are not limited to lyric analysis, song writing, learning to play an instrument, and being able

to express their opinions and desires on the literature they want to learn or what instrument they

wish to play (2011).

Many students with special needs also lack basic social skills that allow them to function

with others in a day-to-day setting. In a study conducted by Potheini Vaiouli, Kharon Grimmet,

and Lawrence J. Ruich (2015), three students with autism were included in a music therapy

classroom setting with other students who did not have documented disabilities over the course

of a few weeks. Over those weeks, all three of the students made incredible progress in terms of

their social skills. By the end of the study, one of the students, Bill, had made a new friend and

willingly chose to sit next to that student instead of his aid (Vaiouli 2015). A mother of another

student in the study, Erick, reported that he was acknowledging and interacting with his siblings

more on a daily basis (2015). Even after the study has concluded, teachers, aids, and parents

were reporting back that the students only continued to progress in their social endeavors and
that the skills they were learning in the music room were transferring to their other classrooms

(2015). Why? Music can create a comfortable environment for social interactions for all

students of all learning abilities (2015). When students are creating art together, it is hard not to

form some kind of social bond with each other. There are even specific musical activities and

teaching strategies to encourage even more social interaction such as allowing students to discuss

different musical topics, designing and alternating seating charts, and structuring and arranging

repertoire so that students with and without special needs can perform the same pieces together

(Darrow 2011). This can also allow students without special needs to help find ways for their

peers with special needs to participate alongside them which encourages even higher level

thinking and problem solving (2011).

Even beyond the emotional and social realms of the brain, there are countless studies that

show music is the one of the only keys to unlocking and discovering all of the different ways the

brain works. Elena Mannes (2011) quoted neuroscientist Robert Zatorre, “There isn’t a

cognitive function that doesn’t somehow pertain to music” (33). Music is part of a human’s

basic makeup, and everyone, regardless of their culture of environment, is able to respond to

music (Scripp 2016). It engages the entire brain—even the parts of the brain that are responsible

for math, language, emotion, and aesthetic response (2016). The power that music has over the

brain is so strong that Catherine Y. Wan and Gottfriend Schlaug (2013) reported, “Music-making

activities can induce brain plasticity to overcome neurological impairments.” This means that

even those students who seem unreachable in their special education classes or their inclusive

general academic classes can be brought to life in a music class. Music has the ability to reach

beyond what hinders them and allows them to feel and act like the rest of their peers. It can
unlock doors that may have been boarded shut for years, and all it takes is engaging one student

with any type of music-making.

Every student should have the right to a music class especially those with special needs

or disabilities. In fact, a music class is one class that they need the most because it provides

emotional, social, and cognitive support which help them live their lives as normally as possible.

These students learn practical skills needed in their day-to-day lives such as acceptable ways to

interact with others, express their emotions, and achieve higher levels of thinking and learning.

Drilling academic standards into their heads in their inclusive core academic classes can cause

them to retreat even further into their minds. They are not provided with comfortable

atmospheres to socialize and reach out to their peers, so they tend to live lonely, isolated lives

often being bullied for being different. Music educators and ensemble directors need to consider

what their programs have to offer these students and what these gifted students can offer their

programs. It is time to fully carry out IDEA and make all classrooms, even those of the arts,

inclusive not only for the students with special needs but also for the students who do not.

Create a learning environment where everyone, students and teachers, can achieve higher

learning. Make music education completely inclusive.

 Works Cited

Darrow, A-A. (2011, January). Early childhood special music education. ​General Music Today,

28(1), 29-32,

Mannes, E. (2011). ​The power of music: Pioneering discoveries in the new science of song.

New York: Walker & Co. pp. 33.

Scripp, L., & Gilbert, J. (2016, September 26). Music plus music integrations: A model for

music education policy reform that reflects the evolution and success of arts integration

practices in 21​st​ century American public schools. ​Arts Education Policy Review,

117(4),186-202.

Vaiouli, P., Grimmet, K., & Ruich, L.J. (2015, January). “Bill is now singing”: Joint

engagement and the emergence of social communication of three young children with

autism. ​Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice,​ 19(1), 73-83​.

Wan, C. Y., & Schlaug, G. (2013). Brain plasticity induced by musical training. ​The

Psychology of Music, 5​ 65-581.