Art Education

Is It Necessary?

Throughout the decades, art education has been the first on the chopping block when the budget is tight in K-12 school districts. I think this is true primarily in the United States. Why? Why is art education deemed expendable or not necessary as far as education goes? Why do school boards think that our children won’t suffer if art is cut from the curriculum?

I think one has to ask how children will benefit with art education (and I’m including performing arts, such as music) and how will they suffer without it. The problem is, most people, and I’m willing to bet even quite a few educated people would view art education as less serious than other subjects like math and science. It’s fluff. It’s just painting pretty pictures or simply the expression of emotions on a canvas or via an instrument.

The fact is, that universities have always grouped together two fields of study…Arts and Science. Math and science seem very rigid. It’s all about the numbers, facts, and what can be proven beyond a shadow of doubt. But not everything in the sciences is black and white. Some things have baffled scientists for decades, centuries even. What happens then?

I would like to think that this is where the powers that be saw the value in the arts. Art, by its very nature IS creativity. To make art, or music, or dance you must create. You are creating an image with paint, or pencil, or charcoal, etc. You are creating sounds with an instrument. You are creating movement with your body synchronized to music. Being creative means being able to think outside of the box. Looking for different ways to express oneself. There is always a problem that needs solving in art. Mainly, how do I convey this idea or that emotion on a canvas, or with an instrument, or on stage? How do I express myself in a way that’s unique to me? How can I imbue my own style, my own personality, my own voice? How can I evoke emotions from those that would witness my work?

There is no one single way to do something in art. Give a thousand painters the same subject matter to paint and you will end up with a thousand different paintings. No two will be alike. Each of the artists will have their own interpretation. And therein lies the magic. Different approaches to the same problem. Thinking outside of the box. Apply that ability to science and you have something very powerful indeed. Thinking outside of the box is where breakthroughs happen.

Arts & Science – Meant to Go Hand in Hand?

When you look at it like that, art education in schools seems to be as necessary to me as math and science. It’s fine to have the brilliant minds that can work the formulas and the numbers. But what happens when they get stuck? What happens when there doesn’t seem to be an answer to the problem? Does science just give up? If school boards continually cut art education from its curriculum, wouldn’t that be like shooting our future mathematicians, scientists, doctors, etc. in the foot, essentially crippling the parts of their brain that would otherwise provide the solution if they could only think outside of the box?

Cindy Meyers Foley, the Executive Assistant Director and Director of Learning and Experience at the Columbus Museum of Art discusses in this TEDx video that art’s critical value is to nurture learners that think like artists. In other words, learners who think outside the box. Learners who are creative, seek questions, develop ideas, whose curiosity never wanes, and who know how to play. For that to happen society will need to stop the pervasive, stereo-typical, and problematic messaging that implies that creativity is somehow defined as and linked to artistic skill. Her hope is that this shift in perception will give educators the courage to “teach for creativity, by focusing on three critical habits that artist employ, 1) Comfort with Ambiguity, 2) Idea Generation, and 3) Transdisciplinary Research. This change can make way for Center’s for Creativity in our schools and museums where ideas are king and curiosity reigns.”

Cindy Foley

Thinking Outside the Box

That ability…thinking outside of the box…is a learned skill. True, some people seem to do it with ease. Others need to be taught and the skill honed. It is not limited to artists, musicians, and actors. Taking an art class doesn’t mean your life’s ambition is to be an artist. Art education merely provides the rounding out of the curriculum. When you consider the old-school left brain (math, science, etc.), right brain (arts, music) thing, our schools are severely imbalanced with curricula weighing almost entirely on the left brain side of the scale. The brain, as you know, is divided into two hemispheres…the left and the right. The whole left brain, right brain thinking was debunked a long time ago. It was thought that all things logical and analytical, like math and science happened on the left hemisphere. And creativity and spatial analysis happened on the right. Therefore, doctors and lawyers were said to be left brain dominant and artists and musicians, right brain dominant.

The truth is, the two hemispheres work independently of each other AND in concert with each other. So then a person with an aptitude for numbers and science isn’t because they’re left-brained. It simply happens to be their preference or they have a natural aptitude for it. Still, there is something to be said for rounding out the curriculum. If we then only feed math and science to the brain but neglect the arts, then we are essentially handicapping the brain as a whole. Since the both halves do work together as well as independently, what happens when the brain has been given an incomplete education or skill set that it needs? Quite simply, it has no frame of reference for when there is an “unsolvable” problem. It would be lacking the brain’s ability to think creatively, to come up with solutions that might otherwise be completely unorthodox for the analytical brain. And in fact, some studies have shown that the brain’s function increases with certain creative training, such as music.

“Can You Imagine?”

Not to mention that art and culture go hand in hand. When you visit another country, you often notice the differences between their culture and your own by their art. And I’m not just referring to what you see in museums. Architecture, signage, ruins, sculpture, fashion…there are plenty of art and artifacts that are particular to certain cultures. I like how my favorite science guy, Neil Degrasse Tyson puts it in this NatGeo video…and I’m paraphrasing…”Can you imagine if they decided to cut the arts during the height of the Renaissance?”

Neil Degrasse Tyson

So with all of that being said, I have to completely disagree when school boards decide to cut art education. It certainly hasn’t been proven to enhance the subjects that remain. Schools are still run down. There still aren’t enough books to go around. And there are still too many students per classroom and test scores are at an all-time low. If you ask me, I think the cut should come from the board itself and their six-figure salaries. Seriously?? But that’s a whole other blog topic!