Among many electives in school now days resides the Performing Arts elective of Music. In order for music to survive in schools, either in the form we presently know it or in some other form that enables it to have a significant role in the general education of young people, we must ask ourselves the question, “what is the importance, significance, and benefit of teaching 1960s music in school, and should it be taught?” In order to answer this question, we must have a relatively valid answer that will instigate the mind of the 21st century to retain a place in the core school curriculums from lower school to college.
If 1960s songs were to be taught in the 21st century school setting, the analysis of 1960s music with context to both the words and musical settings would act as a basis and is a means of exerting a humanizing and civilizing influence and promoting patriotism, home and family life, childhood culture, intellectual progress, and healthy recreation. The listening of 1960s music also promotes a form of cultural education as children are encouraged to listen to music they would never have even bothered to listen to. For many children, listening to 1960s music within a class setting would probably be their first exposure to high and valuable culture. Teaching 1960s music also represents a form of cultural reproduction of European and British associations as children were taught folksongs from different lands. Studying music from different countries also gains a knowledge about the geography and culture of other countries.
Other sundry reasons to teach music of the 1960s to the society of the 21st century in a school environment are:
1. That music caters the human spiritual and emotional needs and symbolizes a medium through which emotions, stories, religion and history can be expressed
2. Music is a part of our cultural heritage, every country and race has its own forms of music that need to be transmitted from generation to generation in order to preserve a particular and unique civilization
3. Music humanizes society from the technological developments that detach us from society
4. Music is a universal system of communication which can promote international goodwill and universal messages that can still be applied to society now days
5. Music can be a soothing influence during a time of high stress, such as within a school environment, which refreshes the mind and emotions
6. Music contribute to students: moral and spiritual development, perceptual development (in particular with relation to hearing), physical development (including therapeutic medical help with certain physical disorders), social development, intellectual development, emotional and personal development and aesthetic development
7. Music as a vehicle for the transmission of culture, which is highly noted in the Beach Boys, is a great way to perpetuate the cultural heritage of a society
8. Music has a major contribution to social development by enabling students to relate to their peers in performing ensembles
9. Music contribution to students as a general scholastic development where music stimulates intellectual development, trains the mind in abstract thinking, provides readiness for other forms of literacy and develops speech
10. Music as a language: a means of non-verbal communication
11. Music as poetry: the expression of emotion
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