What debate?

By Edward Pauly

The interesting thing about the debate on arts education is its conspicuous absence from the decade-long debate on American education.
The education debate has been about enabling every child to learn; about reading and math test scores; about qualified teachers; about charter schools; about after-school programs - all very important things.
Yet the education debate has been silent on the topic of arts education.
Why? There are many reasons.
A generation of educators missed out on their own arts learning experiences when budget cuts in the 1970s and 1980s stretched into an arts education drought.
Thoughtful efforts to place a high priority on reading and math morphed into the mistaken view that other priorities are dispensable.
And the arts have been tagged as another special interest group instead of a part of everyday life.
But when we all step back from the education debate and its budget battles, there is actually widespread agreement on two big reasons arts education should be part of our education debate:
Arts learning - both in and out of school - opens the door to a lifetime of experiences that most young people will miss if they don't step through that door during their school years.
And their passage through that doorway opens up learning experiences that are deeply valued by nearly everyone - including learning about captivating and engaging creative experiences (from Scott Joplin's The Entertainer to Alvin Ailey's Revelations);
sharing meaning with and from the many communities to which Americans belong (from
the jazz greats to Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial); and empathy with people we have not met (as in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman).
Ample reasons for putting arts education back into our national debate about education.

December 1, 2008 5:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) |

2 Comments

By Kuanhunga on December 1, 2008 8:32 AM

So let's assume your statement here: "Arts learning - both in and out of school - opens the door to a lifetime of experiences that most young people will miss if they don't step through that door during their school years." is true.

But so what? These are experiences of a sort, sure. But why are the quantifiably better than other experiences?

By Lindsay Price on December 1, 2008 6:55 AM

Here's the example I always use to support arts education in schools.

I know a teacher in Florida who was working on a high school program with NASA that combines science and drama. Because (and of course I'm generalizing, certainly there are creative people working at NASA) the young engineers are not able to communicate to their co-workers. They're not able to fully express their ideas and they lack creative expression.

This is what drama teaches. Communication, Self-expression, team building. Real world skills.

This Conversation For decades, as teaching of the arts has been cut back in our public schools, alarms have been raised about the dire consequences for American culture. Artists and arts organizations stepped in to try to... more

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