Why Arts Aren T Just For Show

Why Arts Aren't Just For Show

Throughout early education, children are constantly given opportunities to interact with and create art. In kindergarden, kids paint, draw, build, and learn various other artistic things. Even in elementary and middle school, art is often something that students participate in, they are encouraged to express themselves and be creative. However, after childhood the amount of art students participate in drastically drops. High Schools and colleges aren’t there to prepare students for a fulfilling and diverse lifestyle, they exist to make students functioning members of society, which is ironic, because in not teaching art they are actually making students less prepared for the real world. To some extent, arts can

Arts are important in cultures and societies across the globe. In the article “The Norwegian municipal music and art schools in the light of community music”, author Anders Rønningen states ”MMAS [Municipal Music Art Schools] hold an important function in Norwegian society, providing music and arts lessons on a weekly basis for some 103,000 kids, or approximately 15 per cent of all children in primary and lower secondary schools” (Rønningen). Arts are a way that students can connect with their community in a way that other subjects can not. Some of the stated goals of the MMAS discussed in the article were “Using art and culture as a basis for quality of life, fellowship, participation, formation and meaning,” to “Strengthen formative environment and belonging through art and culture,” and “Using the arts in public space and in a community context” (Rønningen). These are things that are vitally important to students. In the article from the International Journal of Art and Design Education, “Envisioning the Future: Working toward Sustainability in Fine Art Education,” Angela Clarke and Shane Hulbert further examine this topic. They write, “Fine art education provides students with opportunities to acquire knowledge and skills to respond creatively to their experience of society and culture” (Angela Clarke and Shane Hulbert). If students are not introduced to the artistic aspects of their cultures, how can they be expected to continue to interact with it? Learning how to respond to their culture is as important if not more important to students than simply learning about it in a history class or participating in a cultural holiday. The tangibility that teaching art can bring to a student teaches them how their society is intractable and not stagnant. The difference between a spanish class that simply