"Art and music are the drugs of choice for millions of kids. If we expect them to just say no to a chemical high, we must recognize the healing alternative; their own CREATIVITY. Demand and support the real anti-drug program - Arts in Education!" --Fred Babb
This is my credo, my goal as an art educator, to spread the word about the importance of the arts in the classroom. While the main focus of our schools is on math and sciences and learning to read the written word, the arts are the first to be cut when the budget is reduced or inadequate. Society in general sees art as a frill rather than a vital necessity of our culture, and our children suffer the consequences. Yet, what remains for the archeologist to study when great empires fall? If it were not for their artifacts, societies of the past would have been forgotten, their culture obliviated by time.
I'm not saying that all of our world problems would be solved if we had better art programs in our schools, but a great many of our social ills would be reduced if our children's creativity through the arts was more highly valued.
Marylou Kuhn wrote, "When the child chooses to make a picture, his way, he expresses truths known only to himself. Because he is unique he finds it impossible to express them in any other way ... His expression is the unique counterpart of himself ... a personal communication to himself ... the transfer of ideas and facts from a private to a public realm" (Kuhn).
If this personal communication is not fostered, or if it is trivialized, what choice does a child have but to act out in less constructive ways? He may be brilliant in the academic classroom, but if all that is required of him is to repeat facts and figures, written and oral, he will resort to doodling in the margins of his textbooks or the surface of his desk, or perform in front of his classmates with inappropriate outbursts, just to alleviate his boredom.
Incorporating art into, say, a math assignment is only part of the answer. I am all for the math teacher using art to reinforce mastery of a lesson, but this is a limited use of art's potential in a child's life. In addition to using art as a tool in the academic classroom, children need to learn how to use art as a communication tool in their personal lives, as a means of self-expression - regardless of their level of artistic talent.
For example, what about the students of inner-city schools, who have major negative influences in their daily lives? How do they cope with very real life problems in a classroom where ancient history is king and creative expression is just a frill?
Stuart Allingham, who taught art in one of the largest and oldest high schools in Los Angeles, recognized the importance of communicating feelings and ideas that have no apparent relationship to academic subjects. He listened to his students daily, the typical incidents of their lives:
"Very often school is routinely dull - an interference with time needed to solve the problems of daily living ... (but) when (art) turns out to be a class in which (students) find out about themselves, it changes the color of life. If skills and ideas are discovered to be part of one's self, school begins to be a place to BE in ... When the students realized that art was a way to say what they felt, and as confidence grew, their apathy and unwillingness began to wane" (Middup).
Goethe contended that "a man does not learn to understand anything unless he loves it." The National Endowment for the Arts emphasizes the belief that "the experience of art is basic to the human spirit and ... should be offered to all children as an essential part of the education process. The idea is to expand the total personality of the child, develop emotional attitudes and receptivity to the process of learning, and instill an awareness of creativity as a living personal process that will remain with the child after formal education is completed" (Eisner).
When art is recognized as vital to living a full life, when it is valued as a tool of self-expression, there is no need to turn to destructive means of "solving" life's problems. No drug can match the high of creating a work of art!