The value of the arts in the education of our children is inestimable. None can argue that exposure, experiences and instruction in music, fine arts, drama and dance can enrich our children's lives. Beyond enrichment, though, the arts can enhance brain development and improve critical thinking skills, broaden knowledge about history, world languages, cultural traditions and literature, and provide additional avenues for academic rigor and multi-disciplinary problem-solving.
Through drama, chorus, dance, orchestra and band, children learn life-long lessons about collaboration and cooperation. They feel the joy and build the courage that comes with performing before an audience, or gain an understanding of how important behind-the-scenes work is to the success of a performance.
In fine arts, children absorb a multitude of lessons, including color properties, chemistry, geometry, optics, history, nature, anatomy, architecture, and photography. They have the empowering experience of manipulating different media, including paint, pencil, ink, pastel, paper, clay and found objects as they create their own individual works of art.
Many studies reveal how the arts can contribute to higher levels of student achievement, higher test scores, higher attendance, higher graduation rates, and lower dropout rates. Therefore, arts instruction in schools, whether elementary, middle or high, improves the academic environment. But it also adds creative energy, rich visuals and lively sounds that help keep children engaged and stimulated.
In these times of intense accountability, with its focus on high-stakes, standardized testing, arts education has become vulnerable. Therefore, maintaining arts instruction as a priority requires intentional and constant care. I have been a strong advocate for the arts on the school board and will continue to be in my second term. All of Orange County's children deserve equitable access to the arts in order to be fully educated. I have worked with the Superintendent on strategies to ensure this access, and made frequent mention of the responsibility that the school board has to create conditions for success, including access to the arts, in all of our schools. I have been an active member of the Schools Action Team of the Orange County Arts and Cultural Affairs Council, a stakeholder group who brainstorms ways to increase access to the arts for Orange County's children and celebrates the principals who display a commitment to arts instruction in their schools.
Our state and federal legislators need to be encouraged to support the arts as a critical component in education. As a community, we need to come together to fill in the gaps so that all of our children, by the time they graduate from high school, have had rich arts instruction and an array of arts experiences. Not only will they be better educated and more enlightened, but there is a greater likelihood for success and fulfillment in whatever work they choose to do. We will all benefit from their collective abilities to create, improvise and innovate. In Daniel Pink's book, " A Whole New Mind," he makes a compelling argument that it is creativity, the "right brain," that provides the competitive edge in the workplace and the path to personal fulfillment in today's world. Teaching the whole child then means teaching the whole mind.
7 months ago