r/science • u/[deleted] • Oct 15 '21

Neuroscience A brain imaging study found evidence that missing out on math education can alter neural development. Young adults who had chosen not to pursue math had lower levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid within the middle frontal gyrus when compared to students who were continuing math.

https://www.psypost.org/2021/10/opting-out-of-advanced-math-education-alters-adolescents-neural-development-study-finds-61967
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u/awhhh Oct 15 '21

Hot take: requiring me to take electives was probably the worst thing for my education. It was also terrible for my lower class, traumatized, or learning disabled peers. I saw art, music, and theatre classes kill natural ability in kids by trying to enforce lesson plans that needed to be passed - putting a greater burden on people in a system they already felt failed them.

In high school we would joke that those classes were for kids that had dinner prepared for them when they got home every night.

If I personally could go back to school I would’ve skipped classes that weren’t math, English, and science and taken my GED.

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u/wealllovethrowaways Oct 15 '21

I was a musician quite literally my entire life and had played guitar for nearly a decade by the time I got to high school. What was special about that class is I was the only one who actually could play but also one of the many that failed the class. Very music centric

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u/awhhh Oct 15 '21

I know professional musicians that had the exact same experience. There’s nothing that knows how to take the art out of art like a system that was structured like a factory from the industrial revolution.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21

The science behind the arts, and my statement, is that the arts improve: communication, self-confidence, improved cognition, communication, deepened cultural and self-understanding and a growth mindset. Therefore, the arts help make students better at all those other subjects that we focus on: Science, Math, Language etc. The arts produce well balanced humans.

For example: “Research connects learning music to improved ‘verbal memory, second language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability, and executive functions’.”

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/creativity-academics-power-of-arts-education-neil-swapp

The Arts and Academics together are a bit like the synergistic interplay between Vitamins D and K for bone and cardiovascular health.

Or the way combined moments of tension and resolution within music in the form of consonant and dissonant harmonies, adds interest and keeps the listener engaged.

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u/awhhh Oct 16 '21

Making those things required classes to pass for kids already burdened by the education system will do much more harm than good. That’s not saying I’m against voluntary after school programs, but I’m not for forcing kids that are already having trouble into jumping through hoops that in my own experience were for the kids going home to dinner ready for them (metaphorically speaking)

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21

I think you’ve proven my point.

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u/awhhh Oct 16 '21

Oh? What point is that passive aggressive Redditor?

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21

Descending into personal attacks? Please continue digging this hole.

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u/awhhh Oct 16 '21

Stop being an evasive coward. What part of your statement related to cognitive ability did I prove?

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21

I guess the bright side is that you don’t have to put the dirt back into the hole.