I have given my children choices whether they wanted to play a musical instrument. My youngest son elected to do so and went the farthest. My answer would be,that he will be glad he learned an instrument when he is older, even though learning to play an instrument is not that important in itself. It teaches him how to learn, and overcome seemingly impossible obstacles, in steps through the learning process. Academics taught alone today are not good enough, considering the advancing technologies after formal education.
Few things teach a person how to learn as well as learning a musical instrument.
We see in the paper that the Central Kitsap School Board is asking the hard question of whether to eliminate music from the regular curriculum. In these days of tough academic standards and the ever increasing importance of WASL scores combined with tighter money and increased public scrutiny of the school board's every move, we think it is great that they are asking the tough questions. Music is very mathematical in nature. In learning music theory, he doesn't even realize that he is learning mathematics while having all of that fun. Study after study have shown that kids with strong musical skills do better in math.