Editor Emeritus, Kansas Music Review
When considering participation in the arts as a part of a well-rounded education for students in elementary through high school, several considerations need to be included in the deliberation. While realizing that various pressures and considerations may impinge on developing a final statement, the implications for students cannot be negated. Such implications may not have been given the full weight of deserved credibility.
First, the arts are essential to humanness. All peoples in all cultures and all time periods have found an inherent need to express themselves through the arts. They are so much a part of life in some cultures that there may not even be a word for a category such as “music”; “music” in those instances cannot be separated from daily existence, but form a natural phenomenon to be acknowledged as integral to life as is breathing. And to that precise extent, the arts are among the most powerful, most compelling manifestation of every cultural heritage.
Next, to understand the arts is a critically important way of knowing about or understanding reality, in fact, it is through the arts that the most complete awareness of cultural and social history can be examined. The arts hold the key to understanding a depth of reality that politics and economics cannot reach. Paul Tillich wrote: “All arts create symbols for a level of reality which cannot be reached in any other way. A picture and a poem reveal elements of reality which cannot be approached scientifically. In the creative work or art we encounter reality in a dimension which is closed for us without such works.”
Albert Einstein insisted that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the world.”[i] Further, he stated: “If we trace out what we behold and experience through the language of logic, we are doing science; if we show it is forms whose interrelationship are not accessible to our conscious thought but are instinctively recognized as meaningful, we are doing art. Common to both is the devotion to something beyond the personal, removed from the arbitrary. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”[ii]
Throughout history, significant credence has been given to the arts as expressing the depths of our inner selves that must be encouraged in our students. Thomas Hudson said: “Creative activity is more than a mere cultural frill, it is a crucial factor of human experience, the means of self-revelation the basis of empathy with others; it inspires both individualism and responsibility, the giving and the sharing of experience.”[iii] Abraham Maslow wrote: “We are dealing with a fundamental characteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all or most human beings at birth, which most often is lost or inhibited as the person gets enculturated.”[iv] The search for meaning is a drive that exists in all of us—and the arts are one of most significant avenues to discover that meaning.
Noted educator Ernest Boyer told American educators: “Art is humanity’s most essential, most universal language. It is not a frill, but a necessary part of communication. The quality of civilization can be measured through its music, dance, drama, architecture, visual art, and literature. We must give our children knowledge and understanding of civilization’s most profound works.”[v] To settle for less results in a poverty-stricken society. Test scores cannot measure resultant destruction.
President Kennedy spoke strongly concerning the importance of the arts: “ Art and the encouragement of art is political in the most profound sense, not as a weapon in the struggle, but as an instrument of understanding of the futility of struggle between those who share man’s faith. Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of 13th century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”[vi]
In similar vein, President Reagan added: “Why do we, as a free people, honor the arts? Well, the answer is both simple and profound. The arts and the humanities teach us who we are and what we can be. They lie at the very core of the culture of which we’re apart and they provide the foundation from which we may reach out to other cultures so that the great heritage that is ours may be enriched by, as well as itself enrich, other enduring traditions.”[vii]
Creativity exists in other arenas than the arts, but the focus and impact differs. Our children must have opportunity to explore and discover their creative selves. To deny that opportunity by bowing to quantifiable scores is to deny who we are. Madelaine L’Engle boldly stated: “All children are artists, and it is an indictment of our culture that so many of them lose their creativity….[viii] Further, she firmly asserts, “But unless we are creators, we are not fully alive.”[ix] Is that the case with our view of education? Harold Anderson continued that indictment with: “Creativity is in each one of us. That is to say, creativity was in each one of us as a small child. In children creativity is a universal. Among adults it is almost non-existent. The great question is: What has happened to this enormous and universal human resource? This is the question of the age.”[x]
In her research and writings on creativity, Jane Piirto has observed: “Creativity is a basic human instinct to make that which is new. …further, creativity is the underpinning, the basement, the foundation, that permits talent to be realized. To be creative is necessary in the realization of a fulfilling life…. We are all creative.”[xi] Psychologist Eric Fromm gave us a statement that prompts deep consideration: “Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies. Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”[xii]
The list of powerful statements supporting the creative arts in speeches, books, TED talks, etc. seems endless. I would encourage anyone concerned with this issue to read The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch, former member of the State Department of Education in Washington, D.C. Her chapter entitled “Lessons Learned” includes this paragraph:[xiii]
In the arts, we should agree that all children deserve the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument, to sing, engage in dramatic events, dance, paint, sculpt, and study the great works of artistic endeavor from other times and places. Through the arts, children learn discipline, focus, passion, and the sheer joy of creativity. We should make sure that these opportunities and the resources to support them are available to every student in every school.
Obviously, this statement is extensive—possibly too extensive to be completely perused. I am in my fifty-fifth year of teaching and could not believe more strongly in the necessity of the arts in the lives of our students. Too often, bottom-line measurable accountability drives the ship that may or may not have a rudder, and we forget our children for the wonders that they are.
Involvement in the creative arts is essential to the life of our children. No emphasis on other considerations should be allowed to undermine that involvement. Other arenas need not be diminished; on the contrary, research has proven that participation in the arts enhances the understanding of the sciences, math, technology, etc. Recent brain research continues to verify the importance of the creative arts in the developing minds and lives of all human beings.
How can there be any consideration of depriving our students of the possibility to live a life of fulfillment?
Endnotes:
[i] Albert Einstein. As quoted in “What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview y George Sylvester Viereck in The Saturday Evening Post, (26 October 1929).
`[ii] Albert Einstein, from “A Testimonial from Professor Einstein,” in The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, by Jacques Hadamard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945) Appendix II, p. 112.
[iii] Thomas Hudson, quoted in: Susan Elizabeth Tibbetts, “Thomas Hudson: A Study of His Vision for Art Education” Doctoral Thesis, University of Huddersfield, England. March 2014, p.14
[iv] Abraham H. Maslow, The Maslow Business Reader: Self-Actualizing Work, ed., Deborah C. Stephens, (NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000) p. 24
[v] Ernest Boyer, Toward Civilization A Report On Arts Education (Washington, D.C., National Endowment for the Arts, 1988) p. 14.
[vi] John F. Kennedy, Remarks on behalf of the National Cultural Center at a close and circuit television broadcast, National Guard Armory, Washington, D.C., November 29, 1962.
[vii] Ronald Reagan, Remarks at a Luncheon for Recipients of the National Medal of Arts, June 18, 1987, Washington D.C., East Room of the White House.
[viii] Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water (NY: North Point Press, 1980) p. 51
[ix] Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water, p. 89.
[x] Harold H. Anderson, ed., Creativity and Cultivation (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1959) p. xii
[xi] Jane Piirto, Understanding Those Who Create (Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press, Inc., 1998) p. 41
[xii] Eric Fromm, “The Creative Attitude” in Creativity and Cultivation, p. 53.
[xiii] Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System (NY: Basic Books, 2010) p. 235.
