Why Should We Not Get Rid of the Arts in Schools
A writer, arts enthusiast, and online ambassador for visual storytelling has a modest proposal for K-12 education: Let'south merchandise "art" for "creativity."
Art, they say, is great for kids. Art and music programs help keep them in school, brand them more than committed, raise collaboration, strengthen ties to the customs and to peers, meliorate motor and spatial and language skills. At-take chances students who take art are significantly more likely to stay in school and ultimately to go higher degrees. A study by the College Board showed that students who took four years of art scored 91 points better on the Sat exams (Hawkins, 2012).
Awesome.
Nonetheless, arts pedagogy has been gutted in American public schools. Afterward the recession of 2008, 80% of the nation'south schools faced upkeep cuts. In the meantime, No Child Left Backside and the Mutual Core Country Standards pushed educators to prioritize science and math over other subjects. Arts programs were the first victims. And, predictably, lower income and minority students were the virtually likely to lose their fine art programs. In Los Angeles Canton alone, i-third of the arts teachers were let get between 2008 and 2012; for one-half of the county'southward Grand-v students, art educational activity disappeared altogether (EdSource Staff, 2014). As of 2015, but 26.two% of African-American students had access to art classes (Metla, 2015).
Every bit the economic system has improved, there has been some word near reversing some of these cuts. But that's not enough.
I'm no expert on education, only having spent a lot of time in schoolhouse art programs over the by couple of years, here's the impression I go: In the lower grades, kids just accept fun drawing and painting. They don't really demand much encouragement or teaching. In centre school, the majority start to lose their passion for making stuff and instead learn the price of making mistakes. All too oft, art class becomes a gut, an opportunity for adolescents to screw effectually. By loftier school, they have been divided into a handful who are "cocked" and may keep to fine art schoolhouse and the vast majority who accept no interest in art at all.
In brusk, every child starts out with a natural interest in art, but for nigh information technology is slowly tuckered away until all that'southward left is a handful of teens in eyeliner and black clothing whose parents worry they'll never move out of the basement.
Here'south a modest proposal: Let's take the "art" out of "art didactics."
"Art" is not respected in this land. It's seen as frivolity, an indulgence, a way to proceed kids busy with scissors and paste. "Art" is an elitist luxury that difficult-nosed bureaucrats know they can cut with impunity. And so they do, making math and science the priority to fill up the ranks of futurity bean-counters and pencil pushers.
So I propose we get rid of "art" instruction and replace it with something that is crucial to the hereafter of our world: creativity.
A creative core?
Nowadays, we all need to exist creative in ways that nosotros never did, or could, before. Solving bug, using tools, collaborating, expressing our ideas conspicuously, beingness entrepreneurial and resourceful — these are the skills that matter in the 21st-century, mail-corporate labor market place. Instead of being defensive well-nigh fine art, instead of talking about culture and self-expression, we have to focus on the power of creativity and the skills required to develop information technology. A great artist is likewise a trouble solver, a presenter, an entrepreneur, a fabricator, and more than.
Imagine if inventiveness became a core part of K-12 educational activity . . .
Instead of didactics kids to pigment bowls of fruit with tempera, we'd testify them how to communicate a concept through a sketch, how to explore the world in a sketchbook, how to generate ideas, how to solve real bug. Theater would exist all well-nigh collaboration, presentation, and trouble solving. Music classes would emphasize creative habit, teamwork, the honing of skills, composition, improvisation.
Nosotros'd teach creative process, how to come up with ideas, how to observe inspiration, how to steal from the greats. We'd teach kids to work effectively with others to meliorate and exam their ideas. Nosotros'd teach them how to realize their ideas, how to get them executed through a supply chain, how to present and marketplace and share them.
We'd also emphasize digital creativity, focusing on cut edge (and inexpensive) technology, removing the artificial divide between arts and science, showing how engineering and sculpture are related, how drawing and User Experience (UX) Design are facets of the aforementioned sort of skills, how music and math mirror each other. Nosotros'd teach kids how to use Photoshop to communicate concepts, to shoot and cutting videos, to blueprint presentations, to use social media intelligently, to write clearly considering it is central to survival. We'd give kids headed for minimum wage jobs a gamble to be entrepreneurial, to create true economic power for themselves, by developing their creativity and seeing opportunity in a whole new way.
Yep, I know that in that location are loftier-school video classes and art computer labs, but they need to be turned into engines for creativity and usefulness, not abstract, high-falutin' artsiness based on some 1970s concepts of expression. Don't make black and white films about leaves reflected in puddles; make a video to promote adoption at the local brute shelter. Don't do laborious charcoal drawings of pop stars; generate new ideas on newspaper. Fill 100 sticky notes with 100 doodles of ways to raise consciousness about the environment or income inequality or water conservation. Stop making pinch pots; instead, build a 3-D printer and turn out artificial hands for homeless amputees.
(And, by the manner, if we teach kids loads of math and science only don't encourage their creativity, they aren't going to grow up to be not bad engineers and scientists and inventors and discoverers — just drones and dorks.)
Creativity is not a ghetto, not a clique, non something to exist exercised alone in a garret. Nor is information technology a freak show of self-indulgent divas and losers. Rather, creativity is almost helping solve the world's many problems. Nosotros need to make sure that the kids of today (who will demand to be the artistic trouble solvers of tomorrow) realize their creative potential and accept the tools to use them. That matters far more than football games and standardized test scores.
References
EdSource Staff. (2014, April viii). Effort to revive arts programs in schools gains momentum. EdSource .
Hawkins, T. (2012, December 28). Will less art and music in the classroom really help students soar academically?Washington Post.
Metla, 5. (2015, May 2014). School fine art programs: Should they be saved? Police force Street.
This piece originally appeared as a mail service on Gregory's blog: https://dannygregorysblog.com
/2016/04/15/ lets-get-rid-of-art-didactics-in-schools.
Originally published in April 2017 Phi Delta Kappan 98 (vii), 21-22. © 2017 Phi Delta Kappa International. All rights reserved.
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Source: https://kappanonline.org/gregory-lets-get-rid-art-education-schools/
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