My classmate Alex recently wrote a blog post about how school can kill one’s ability to be creative. This for me, is incredibly important. I am a huge proponent of the arts, both in and out of school. I have sung, acted, danced, and done musical theater basically since I was born, and I know just how much the arts have positively impacted my life. While it is obviously important to have that (sometimes boring) structure of math, science, history classes, and more, I believe that it is just as important to have art and theater classes.
Some teachers and school curriculum tend to force students into a box. They need to write papers in a very specific way, complete projects according to only the teacher’s guidelines with no room for creativity, and more. Students can have very different ways of learning, and to try to squeeze them all into one category and one learning style is really not plausible. This actually happened to me in my AP biology class in high school. My teacher was terrible and only liked things when they were done her specific way, and that caused me to hate that class. I hated that class so much that I never wanted to go the homework for it and didn’t even want to attend.
Me everyday in that class
I think that this is why some people do not like school. They are not inspired to learn, and are instead taught to just do well on standardized testing so that the school can look good. This stressed importance of grades also does not foster a healthy learning atmosphere. People will only study for a test because they want a good grade, not because they actually want to learn the material. This can stress students out, because the pressure is too great.
So with all of this in mind, let’s get back to this issue at hand.
I believe that the arts can fix all of this.
That’s right. I know that is a bold claim, but I really believe in it! There is an article that lists several reasons as to why the arts are so incredibly important to education and just life skills in general. Obviously, one learns to be creative, which transfers over into all assignments and even the way that students view learning. It also helps one with public speaking and confidence. Through musical theater, I have learned how to have stage presence and command a room when giving a presentation and be confident enough to do so.
PBS even says that a report by Americans for the Arts stated that young people who participate regularly in the arts (three hours a day on three days each week through one full year) are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, to participate in a math and science fair or to win an award for writing an essay or poem than children who do not participate. That is an incredible statistic! If the education system were to make an arts class a requirement every year, then students would excel.
Images
Image 1: http://giphy.com/gifs/overwhelmed-joseph-gordon-levit-PPW6LRDNhegRG
Image 2: http://giphy.com/gifs/school-ZPXB41fw27ZVm
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