There was a story on NPR today that I think got a bunch of artists around the country all abuzz. Apparently, Obama has moved ahead on his plans to create an arts education initiative modeled after civil service organizations like the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. A sort of Artist Corps. He's been looking at MusicianCorps, a program created by Kiff Gallagher, as a possible blueprint for a more comprehensive, government-run program.
It would be aimed at bringing professional artists into schools with little to no arts programming in order to provide a way for artists to give back to their communities and for children in our public schools to benefit from receiving arts instruction and being allowed to engage in creative exploration.
A win-win situation if you ask me. As someone who has dabbled in creating programming in similar areas, I think the idea of a national push to place more emphasis on creativity and knowledge of the arts in public schools would be truly phenomenal.
I know culturally, we like to focus on science and math and look at the nation's analytical skills and critical thinking capacity... and yes, there is something inherently creative in those pursuits... but my experience has been that the arts - like no other medium - enables a type of exploration that leads to expanded awareness of self and other, provides a language for communication that reaches across cultural and societal boundaries, and allows young people the opportunity to explore their personal context and narrative in order to reframe their conceptualization of themselves, their spirituality, their future orientation, and much more.
Art is transformative. It is political, social, cultural, and personal. It makes us think, makes us feel, and sometimes even makes us question our connection to the universe and the divine.
The fact that President-Elect Obama and his transition team are kicking around this idea and seriously considering creating a program wherein such learning might again become a part of a child's weekly routine is extremely exciting. A biased perspective, to be sure, but I consider it a heroic and beautiful dream that could forever alter the landscape of the collective consciousness for generations to come.
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3 comments:
We have a tendency to think that the arts, music, science and math are unrelated, but these are all integral, and it is our failure to regard the interrelations between them that make school boring and irrelevant even to our best and brightest.
My program at a small private school uses the art of woodworking to engage children's hands in learning, and by focusing on making tools, we extend the range of the hands into the traditional school curriculum.
The hands are essential to effective learning. By neglecting the arts, we neglect the hands. A look at the concept of "embodied cognition" or Susan Goldin-Meadow's study of gesture will inform of the integral role of the hands in a wide variety of things from growth of intellect, exploration of ideas, basic comprehension to emotional balance. Kelly Lambert's work on depression illustrates the role of the hands in preventing the onset of depression and alleviating its symptoms.
My blog where this is discussed and my work with kids is sillustrated is Wisdom of the Hands and I am a member of the Eureka Springs Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship here in Arkansas
Oooh, we can only hope...
Doug... yes yes! I believe very strongly in arts infusion and interdisciplinary curriculum. Your program sounds wonderful, and I love the idea of tying together tactile experience, artistic expression, emotional connection, and intellectual activity.
Finding ways to bring more creativity into the school setting is a growing passion of mine as well, and it's always so great to hear about the work being done by others in the field with similar drives.
I look forward to the time when creativity is seen as a benefit to testing, rather than something that must be set aside in the pursuit of higher numbers as everyone panics in the wake of NCLB.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and the link to your blog!
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