John F. Kennedy once said, “We must never forget that the arts are not a form of propaganda, they are a form of truth.” And the composer Felix Mendelsohn said, “Life and the arts are not two different things.”
But what do you think about the arts? What are the arts? Are the arts important — or are they just ornamental?
What we usually think of as “the arts” is a group of creative disciplines or areas of human expression: the performing arts, the visual arts and literature. The performing arts include music, dance, opera, theater and film. The visual arts include drawing, painting and sculpting. Literature includes poetry, novels and short stories, and epics.
Travel the world and you’ll find museums filled with visual arts, theaters dedicated to music, dance and drama, and libraries filled with volumes of literature from ancient times to the present.
But how important are the arts? In education, research has shown that arts and music classes, especially when integrated into other subjects such as math, reading and history, boost student achievement and test scores. The arts cut across racial, cultural, social, educational and economic barriers, and enhance cultural appreciation and awareness.
The arts provide opportunities for self-expression, bringing the “inner world” into the outer world of concrete reality. The arts help to develop both independence and collaboration. They make it possible to use personal strengths in meaningful ways and help to understand the sometimes difficult abstractions of the world.
The arts are very important!
In recent years, however, partly because of budget cuts, American schools have been pressured to increase standardized test scores, causing them to make cuts to programs such as visual arts, music, dance and theater — often the only subjects in which students can express creative individuality and have a platform for personal expression, despite the studies that show involvement in the arts helps students stay in school, perform better in all academic subjects and enjoy the school experience more.
School curricula in the U.S. have shifted heavily toward core subjects of reading and math, and by “reading” I’m not referring to the reading of literature or poetry, but to the mechanics of reading. It’s reading for process, not for enrichment.
More than two-thirds of the states have adopted the Common Core Standards in English, language arts and math, establishing clear guidelines for what the architects of the Common Core think students need to know and be able to do in order to graduate from high school prepared for college and/or a career. These new guidelines can change the character of our schools. At a time of proposed cuts to school funding and increased emphasis on student achievement and standardized test scores, the possible elimination of arts and music classes in public schools could be detrimental to student progress.
With so much attention these days on video games and television programs, the arts have a special place in the development of the whole child. Like anything that’s worth working for, the arts require discipline and dedication. We do not get immediate gratification, but the gratification we do get lasts a lifetime. Watch the joy on the faces of kids when they receive applause during a play or when they receive an award for a picture they’ve created or a poem they’ve written. That level of pride cannot be achieved without hard work and dedication — traits that are becoming rare in today’s youth.
Debbie Turici, a member of the Pennsylvania State Education Association board of directors and chair of the PSEA Fine Arts Caucus, was quoted as saying, “The worst thing that could happen to public education would be to cut arts classes, in favor of more time for math, science and reading. Employers are looking for creative young people when recruiting for 21st century jobs. Young people exposed to the arts will be better positioned to get these jobs. We can’t outsource creativity; we must make sure that all students have access to arts and music education.”
Amen!
Categories
