Without The Arts, Kids Shortchanged
Some state legislators in Kansas are thinking that public schools should teach reading, writing, math, history and pretty much leave it at that. Gone would be arts and sports.
Sports is another topic for another time. For now, consider the arts.
From my own school days, I can only imagine how dreary it would have been to forego classes in art appreciation, chorus and drama. Especially drama. From high school through college and early adulthood, my involvement in theater added depth to my life in friends made, insights achieved and confidence gained.
Of course, before performing in plays, one must know how to read and write. It is also helpful to understand any dramatic work in the context of history. Before designing a set, one must comprehend math. You see, learning the basics and studying the arts are not mutually exclusive endeavors. They can and should complement each other.
Further, there is no better place to explore ideas, to finely hone one’s basic skills, than by studying the performing and the visual arts. It is the stuff by which civilizations are defined. Imagine 20th-century America without the talent of such great composers, musicians, painters, sculptors, actors and playwrights as George Gershwin, Eugene O’Neill, Geraldine Page, Mary Cassett, Georgia O’Keeffe, Duke Ellington, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollack, Leontyne Price, Marian Anderson, Stephen Sondheim, Aaron Copland, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Louise Nevelson, Helen Hayes, Edward Albee, Edward Hopper, Alexander Calder, Grandma Moses and so many, many more.
Too many schoolchildren today - alas, too many college students, too - do not know these names. They are intellectually, spiritually and culturally cut off from the arts because they have never been taught about them. What they know they have learned from television, generally a pale imitation of what can be seen at a museum or enjoyed at a live performance.
That is not to say that all those people who care not a whit about anything artistic if it isn’t country music, “Seinfeld” or a poster of a rock star are somehow lesser beings. It is to say that every child should have the opportunity to learn about all the artistic options available.
Once they do, they may still prefer Clint Black or The Smashing Pumpkins to Wynton Marsalis or Andre Watts. They may choose to pay their money to see the latest Bruce Willis film rather than buy a ticket to a performance of a revival of a Broadway musical. Or maybe they’ll choose both. At least they’ll know enough to make informed decisions, to be able to enjoy a whole array of performances from gospel to folk, puppet shows to ballet.
I’m just cranky enough about the idea of pushing all art aside in favor of only the basics in public schools to be downright suspicious of those who promote such an idea.
Do they believe that by stripping public education down to the bare bones, they can so damage the appeal of public schools that they can eventually destroy them? Some of the greatest critics of public education, after all, are not supporters of public education.
Are they, in fact, afraid of art, as people are often fearful of what they haven’t experienced? There is also the possibility that some opponents of art in the schools do not want young people exploring the broad concepts and topics that art exposes them to.
It just doesn’t wash that teaching basics cannot co-exist with teaching about imagination and creativity, as well. It is sad when any child is denied the educational opportunity of, say, learning to appreciate the genius of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” or the beauty of Grandma Moses’ primitist rural scenes.
Public education should be about preparing kids for adulthood. We shortchange them when we leave out one of life’s richest blessings, the arts. Of course they must learn to read, write and do math. That goes without saying.
They also need art. That needs to be said.
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