Michelle Obama and I Agree: Commit to the Arts in Schools
While foreign finance ministers and central bankers met a few weeks ago at the G-20 summit to discuss the state of the world's finances, it was something that Mrs. Obama, not Mr., said that made my ears perk up.
Speaking at the Pittsburgh Creative & Performing Arts School, Michelle Obama gave an 11-minute address about the importance of the arts in our schools. I appreciated her expressing the conviction that the arts aren’t somehow an “extra” part of our nation’s life, but should be an essential part of it.
Mrs. Obama's sentiments couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. With state budgets under attack, we in the arts are bracing for a familiar song: whether or not to fund arts in the schools. When times get tough, the arts programs are always among the first to be eliminated from the curriculum.
Cutting arts funding is a short-sighted move whose consequences contribute to the deepening cultural disconnect occurring in our society.
Specifically, a generation raised without awareness of the arts, without the opportunity to experience the arts themselves by making music, making drawings, making poems, is a disenfranchised one. Art is the essence of who we are and our society is strengthened whenever young people are given the opportunity to directly share this legacy.
Whether this mission is accomplished through advocacy for arts-education funding, through music or arts programs in school, or through impassioned performances, we must continue our commitment to keep art and music as living traditions.
I am, of course, an advocate for classical music, whose twelve hundred year unbroken continuum allows us to intensely experience what it meant to be alive in 1200 or 1600 or 1900. I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience those world views. But, this can only be done by giving young people the keys that open up the whole world of music to them. These were the keys my parents and very importantly my teachers in public schools offered me.
The problem is that we, as a society, have abandoned the responsibility of exposing our young people to the very language of music. Today, the amount of music instruction in both elementary and secondary classrooms is decreasing; many recent reports highlight the disparity between public rhetoric about the value of arts education and the stark decline in curricular offerings across the nation – a phenomenon exacerbated by the growing pool of classroom teachers whose own education and teacher preparation programs included minimal offerings in the arts.
Music is about the human spirit, about our common heritage. When younger people are given a chance to experience classical music, they like it.
We must advocate for this in our schools, but also not sit idly by as artists. The biggest responsibility that we have in the performing arts organizations have today—a responsibility we have no option but to accept—is to help young people understand how music works and what it means. Those who know this music, know the arts, can experience a deeper sense of life itself.
Michael Tilson Thomas hosts Keeping Score Season II, premiering October 15, 22, and 29, 2009 on PBS (check local listings). www.keepingscore.org
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Although, despite having access to the research data that provides overwhelming evidence about valuable benefits for enhancing brain function from engaging in sophisticated music pursuits, our society has yet to gain the critical understanding about making music and arts education sustainable (of course, as an integral part of overall sustainable public education).
But, the laws of nature do not allow any vacuum to exist … So,what has started replacing under-funded and under-cut for several decades music literacy education in California’s public schools recently?
It should be obvious that unless our today’s community leaders and the funding policy makers live up to tomorrow’s standards and thus, demonstrate their pioneering spirit through their urgent actions, the vacuum resulting from under-funded intellectual traditions in education will be quickly filled with alternative trends, demanding the answers to the questions, such as:
Who will be accountable for offering no meaningful alternative to today’s young students, which are rapidly turning into the generation of irreversible emotion-deprived “terminators”, strangely “immuned” to the empathy for the pain from a daily dose of rewarding violence video games, fully gadget-equipped for a thumb-dominated texting culture of short and mindless sound bites that are the precursors of ADD symptoms?..
Full article: http://community.sfsymphony.org/profiles/blogs/standing-ovation-for
Why only arts?
As bad as situation with arts is, it is still far more tolerable than situation with science and mathematics.
Mainstream media does not completely shut down arts (as it had shut down science). After all, between long list of TV patterns like a rich crook or a 'celeb' or an athlete, kids are at least exposed to some music, or, - as remotely as it comes to arts - to movies.
How many our kids want to become a journalist or an actor (or even a writer - of some easy genre) or a musician, - as compared to becoming a scientist or inventor? (especially if we do not count first generation born here from East European or Asian immigrants).
Sadly, your opinion is quite common and that is exactly what causes so much trouble in our society and in fact, results in propagation of the growing generation with the super-agile thumbs and destructive minds of terminator, who will also pass their brain structure to the next generation,
By the way, why do you propose to choose between the arts and sciences, when education policy needs to be research-informed, thus addressing the whole-brain development of a child, and therefore – addressing both? (Yes, education in general has to become our society’s major priority, since there is no way to advance into the future, not to mention – stay competitive, unless we, as a country finally start investing into SUSTAINABLE education.)
To find out why we need to talk about advocacy for the arts and music education I propose that you run your own experiment: When you run into a nurse who is incapable to relate to your suffering – ask her, if she had arts and music lessons.
In fact, only through the systematic exposure to the arts and music experiences the child’s growing brain can gain certain – advanced cognitive abilities (such as creative cognition) that won’t be developed through any other activities. And, it should be important to all, but not only to a few to be able to do more than have basic reading and counting skills. Don’t we deserve that!
In addition to the education subject, your comment brings up a subject of the values in our society – a different, although related issue. It is true that the system of values in our current society is completely inadequate and reflects archaic market valuation of only easily tangible and immediately accessible things. Our current value system (now still called “market economy”) rewards only those who can bring instant profit today or at least within the next month. Our society has not yet come up with the system that is able to value “substances” that can be produced only through long-time research and long time commitment to a substantial body of work, or bring aesthetic satisfaction. Thanks to gradually advancing brain research, we slowly begin to learn the scientific explanation about why exactly the best things in life are NOT the things.
When kids are exposed to classical music, they like it. Not everyone will be a musician, but developing a love for and unerstanding of the arts -- musis especially -- pays a lifetime of dividends. I even have more engaging Rock Band sessions wiht my son as he explores new muscial tastes!
What we need is Wii conductor :)
That would be awesome...
We haven't got the money to provide basic health care to millions.
We have 13,000 homeless FEMALE veterans - and their children along with them.
The U.S. is way down the list of achievement in the world on Math and Science. And, falling.
I agree that fine arts in school is a good thing. And, for Michelle Obama - wealthy from her husband's books (which we now know to be fantasy) - it is wonderful.
However, where would you prioritize fine arts?
Before housing? Before healthcare? Before food?
Before skills that can eventually get the students productive jobs - that is, if POTUS can ever get around to sponsoring anything like a jobs bill?
I would not want us to place all issues into a simple one-dimensional string.
Everything is important. Though I do have more sympathy to the case of Math and Science in schools than to Arts. At this point the first is clearly much more neglected than the second.
Neglected not only in schools but as part of culture and as part of society.
Although I don't intend to diminish the importance of Math, I disagree with you about the degree of neglect: no one is cutting Math in our schools (and, of course, no one should), even under the budget constrains. But, the Arts and Music classes were slashed even before this financial catastrophe came upon us... This simply shows what even lesser value is placed on the Arts and Music education in our society.
(But, of course, the point is that both Sciences AND the Arts/Music have to be equally balanced and well-represented in schools' curriculum, reflecting from "whole-brain" research-informed educational policies.)
And yet Maestro Jose Abreu completely transformed the economy of Venezuela in thirty years, through a system of youth orchestras. He is an economist himself, and he's definitely proven the value of his theories. It has nothing to do with the politics of Venezuela as there have been many kinds of governments there in the past thirty years.
El Sistema has created not only jobs, but entire industries, at a cost of less than $300 per child per year. If they can make it work in Venezuela, surely American know-how could make it work here.
The arts contribute to a creative economy, teaching kids to solve problems in ways that are different from a math, science or language class. Cities that promote the arts tend to have growing economies, while cities that don't have leaders who care about art do less well. I myself am a photographer and a biologist and skills from one discipline help tremendously with the other.
Clearly, you have not had the benefit of an arts education. I teach drama at a "low-income" elementary school. Drama may sound like fluff to you, but I am actually equipping my students with problem solving skills that will prepare them for a "productive job." Drama also builds self-confidence which is crucial to success in life. Obviously there a large number of high priority issues that need to be addressed in this country, but we also need to invest in our future (which will pay off in the long run). What better way to invest in our future than to provide our children with a well-balanced education (which will in turn create well-balanced adults)?
The answer may be surprising to many and is based on neuro-scientific research, proving that systematic exposure to music education causes rapid brain growth that results in formation of advanced cognitive skills. Wouldn’t that be enough to prioritize it finally?
Would the next generation of people with well-developed brains be much more capable of solving all the problems that you’ve listed?
Let's allow the evolution to take place! Oh, and it is fun too! (That's how any are of education should feel too, in order to be productive, by the way.)
i agree completely. i got my bfa in classical music performance and my masters in ethnomusicology. i recently partnered with the local blues society to start a blues in the schools program. i would like to expand to a music in the schools exchange and work well beyond the classical arts of the european tradition to include balinese gamelon, african griot traditons, peruvian pan pipes, mountain music, and of course blues(i make my living performing and teaching blues) among others. it's hard work but completely doable. i'm in west virginia of all places(definately not a bastion of priveledge) and i've found wide ranging support from foundations and private businesses to indiviuals. good luck to all that are working towards the goal of enhancing our society through cultivating the arts.
What people forget is that classical music is not exclusively European. There are a hundred forgotten classical composers from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. They just don't get any publicity because of the popularity and accessibility of the music from Europe. The compositions are astounding, and they are finally starting to get some attention.
being a guitarist i realize that. i was generalizing. i've played the music of barrios, piazzola, rodrigo, villa-lobos, and many others. most of it is much more satisfying to play than the european styles. it's got the funk.
Dont't Forget classical music from India, China, Japan and Bali! They also have very old musical traditions that I find fascinating.
If we truly want a robust economy, then funding arts in the schools is a must. Studies have shown that art and creative tasks help the brain with critical thinking and problem solving.
If you need an example of what happens when you have no interest in art or culture, look at George W. Bush.
I see the arts as core to all education.
The more we eliminate the arts, the more education fails.
It would be better to end all public funding of schools. Then parents could decide what form of education to purchase for their children. Kids could then get education based on their talents and not be treated like a number, crammed into classrooms with delinquents being taught a curriculum that is catered to passing the least common denominator.
In Chicago when I was growing up, we had in every high school symphonic bands and orchestras playing serious music not pop garbage. That is where I learned to understand & love symphonic music, serious music. At Lane Technical we studied counterpoint, orchestration, theory and music history. We had a 100-plus symphony orchestra. We experienced the joy of doing something well, not memorizing trvia, something real and important. Now American education is all about academics and as much math as possible and the arts have been killed. The arts are more important than algebra, chemistry or physics which correctly belong in college as speciality subjects, not for everyone. The emphasis on such and with multi-guess tests has nothing to do with education. It is all about making making those in government feel good, that they are doing something. It is all phony.
(Obviously, I am a fan & impersonator of Chrales Darwin)
you are absolutely right, and as a classically trained musician and teacher myself, i have seen the delight in the faces of my students and heard their words of enthusiastic enjoyment when they have been exposed to classical music for the first time.
the means of self expression, in whatever form of art it takes, is essential to developing well rounded individuals who are not afraid to think for themselves. in short, art gives us the courage to dream.
throughout the darkest times of history, it has always fallen to the artists to preserve the expression of the human spirit, so that we as a species retain the best of what it is to be human. so that we can stay connected to one another.
thank you for this eloquent editorial about the importance of the arts to everyone. they are the essence of us that will live on long after we are gone.
"This is how we've fallen into such a state of public political awareness................."
I MEANT LACK of public political awareness!
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-tilson-thomas/michelle-obama-and-i-agre_b_321605.html
Mr. T T, I heartily agree!
Nixon cut the funding to the Arts in Public schools in 1973. My Brother's first job as a Drama Major Graduate, was teaching Shakespeare in the Baltimore Public School System. It was abruptly cut off after 2 months! I encountered a young fisherman in his 20's in Downeast Maine last summer, who lamented the very brief taste he got of Shakespeare in school, wishng there had been more..................WE had an entire semester of the Bard in the 50's.
So we have 3 decades of the population NOT exposed to anything ABOVE mediocre! The toxic auditory trash we are forced to listen to while "shopping" is painful, abusive, and does nothing to "sooth the savage beast" in fact I think it. generates violence & unrest. IMO, it does NOT encourage me to spend more money.I grab what I NEED and get out of there ASAP!
AS a visual Artist, for the last 40 years...................I morn the loss of the ability to see; in the general public. There used to be an innate ability to "read a painting. With the Corporate Godzilla's insistence on plucking out the eyes and ears of the general public, most people can't even "see/ hear" any more.
This is how we've fallen into such a state of public political awareness.................
Many - actually most - children learn much better when they have arts education. The schools cut off critical pathways within their students' brains when they cut out the arts. Music augments math; art augments critical thinking. Young children are hungry for the self expression that comes through arts education. It is sad and ridiculous that school administrators have, in their ignorance, allowed the arts to be sacrificed in their budgets. Art gets done in spite of this, of course - art is part of human experience, and human beings do it whether or not it is valued or remunerated. MTT is a great educator, as well as a great conductor. May he grow in influence.
I completely agree, music is about the human spirit. Love how there is a move to bring classical music to the schools - like what LA Philharmonic is doing with Gustavo Dudamel, and to the masses - like what the SF Symphony is doing with its upcoming "Keeping Score" that will air tomorrow on PBS. Making sure classical music endures will be our legacy.
As a supporter of the SF Symphony, I'm delighted to see MTT take a stand on the importance of the arts and music education. Our public schools used to always fund the arts, but no longer. It's time we made this a priority again. And, I look forward to watching "Keeping Score" in SF on KQED TV.
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