Honors project stresses importance of music education

Alex Sneed is one of many students using their honors project as a platform to advocate a cause they care about. The main feature of Sneed’s project is a documentary stressing the importance of music education for adolescents.

The film focuses on the music education program at Clay High School, at which her father Thom Sneed teaches, and the impact it has had on students and the community.

When discussing the influence of music programs in her paper, Sneed highlights the positive effects on cognitive reasoning, memorization, intelligence, creativity, social skills and self-esteem.

Sneed said she hopes her film will “inform viewers of the problems that challenge today's music education programs and persuade them of the benefits of keeping those programs active in schools.”

She plans on sending the finished project to the Ohio Education Association as a way to advocate school music programs and will also allow the featured school district, Oregon City Schools, to use the video for promotional purposes.

Sneed encourages anyone who has an interest in music or in the future of America’s youth to watch her film.

“There is so much more at stake with today's young people than simply learning how to sing or play an instrument,” Sneed said. “We have the potential to completely transform the lives of students with the power of music education.”