EDIT: A lot of you are reading into the tweet while still somehow agreeing with the overall message. No one is saying we should eliminate music programs or that we should teach toddlers about healthcare plans. The tweet is making this thing called a --checks notes-- joke, that also conveys the message that schools could teach more practical skills that young adults will need going forward.
Kids should learn about taxes and other important life lessons. However musical studies help kids a lot. It improves memory, hand eye coordination, increases grey matter in their brains, improves fine motor skills…all sorts of benefits come from learning a musical instrument. Plus once they can actually play you’ll have a live in classical jukebox.
Teenagers should learn this. Not in elementary school.
It’s also important to expose kids to a major facet of human culture. If they don’t come from a musical household, they may never get exposed to the intoxicating phenomenon of making musical sounds.
Okay but does the music have to be from a recorder? The sound makes me bleed from the eyes.
Easier to learn and more suitable for little hands
Hey, at least they don’t start them on bagpipes.
The Recorder in general isn’t a bad instrument, though. If you hear a flute from the Baroque period, it’s most likely the Recorder. It requires sophisticated technique, but since it’s cheap to make, teachers use it as a teaching method without even knowing that they use the tongue to stop their breath, or that air pressure varies depending on the pitch being made. Also, there are many types of Recorders. What the children use are Soprano recorders, which have a high pitch (duh).