Make Arts Education Mandatory

I subscribe now to On Stage Blog. Since I have been trying to write I thought it worthwhile to see what was going on in the wider world. I did not expect anything like If Math and Science Are Required in School, the Arts Should Be Too.

This article makes the following argument:

...Perhaps the most insulting and tiresome excuse I’ve heard from people who claim that arts education should not be compulsory is that the arts are not as important to a child’s education as other subjects are. 

This could not be further from the truth. There is plenty of evidence out there that suggests that kids who engage in creative or artistic activities as a child – whether it be acting in a play or playing an instrument or painting a picture – benefit significantly as they grow up, as a result of it. Plus, kids these days are already exposed to many forms of art on a regular basis, whether they know it or not. 

I am surprised this post did not cross-reference Processing Uvalde from the same site and which I commented on in my Unique Idea for Preventing Mass Shootings. This more recent post refers to the cutting of school budgets. The barest possibility of art classes preventing a single school shooting justifies their funding. That we are supposed to be educating citizens not mere cogs in an economic machine should make arts funding a no-brainer. I know full well this is not so - see my Indiana Republicans Dumbing Down Hoosiers. I still have no answer why Americans fear educating their children.

sch 6/9/22