Without imagination, who is going to solve the scientific, environmental, economic, and political problems of the future?
Our vision of what ought to be begins with equality. We believe there should be equality around the perceived importance of every subject, equality of arts funding, and equality of funding across all schools. Currently, far too many legislative decisions are being made by only those in power, with influences from capitalism and racism. It is our belief that, inadequate funding causes a devaluation of the arts in education, creating a myth of normalcy and nature in society. The danger in creating this myth is that the arts are no longer viewed as essential, meaning they are not essential for work, which in turn makes them irrelevant to capitalism, a driving force in the United States.
A benefit of arts instruction, is that teachers can address all eight categories of multiple intelligences instead of just the two traditional intelligences (linguistic and logical/mathematical) which are commonly tested (Guallat, 2007, p. 218). Due to the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers feel pressured to teach to these two intelligences (Guallat, 2007). The focus on standardized testing has resulted in more “time preparing and practicing for and taking tests…which has shown to take up to 20% of the year’s total instruction time, while exceeding the amount of time allotted to the arts” (Amerein-Beardsley, 2009, p. 11). As educators who know the advantages of the arts, it is essential that we advocate for our students because we are responsible for their learning.
As both students and educators, the funding for the arts matters to us personally because the arts allow students to be creative and express themselves in a multitude of ways. We believe that the arts can help students define themselves as individuals, and can be used as a means of expressing themselves to the world around them. We all have had different experiences with the arts from when we were in school, and we agree that participation in these activities helped to establish a sense of community within our school. Additionally, through participation in art, music, and drama we were able to learn important “real life” skills, but we also learned a lot about ourselves. Therefore, part of our vision is that the arts become more of a driving force in our schools so that children have the opportunity to express themselves and grow as we did.
We believe that the structured curriculum in mathematics, science, history, reading and writing are not the only skills necessary to succeed in the “real world”. Children need a chance to explore, use their imaginations, create, present, and perform. In addition, there are many students who learn best through creative expression and arts education and by eliminating arts funding, society is eliminating those students’ best possibilities for success in the classroom. Our vision is for every school, every classroom, to have an equally developed and funded arts program that will train imaginative students, providing them opportunities to shape the future of the United States. Dr. Jerrold Ross (2005) of St. John’s University states that events like Sputnik and September 11, 2001 are a result of our country’s lack of imagination (p. 6).
Our country is so focused on the facts that we do not take into consideration the imagination and ideas of other countries. By falling to encourage the arts, creativity, and imagination in our schools, our country’s “national well-being (including but not limited to national security)” will be threatened (Ross, 2005, p. 7). Therefore, our vision works to promote arts education in order to provide a strong arts education program in United States public schools, where we will inspire creativity and imagination of students who will be able to control where our country is heading.
Teachers need to recognize that all students learn differently, and these students need opportunities to figure out who they are, how they learn, and what they enjoy. We believe, the arts need to be incorporated into the curriculum so that students can figure out the answers to these questions. We have noticed that in a structured curriculum students don’t have a chance to portray themselves as individuals. Many teachers only want to see the “right” answer. We believe creative expression is necessary for the future of our country. Without imagination, who is going to solve the scientific, environmental, economic, and political problems of the future?
Our vision is of change.
We believe in the future.
We believe in the arts.
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