By Mattie Lippe
When school budgets tighten, arts programs are often the first to go. But that’s okay, because arts classes are only for the gifted, they don’t teach anything, and schools should direct funding to core subjects and sports. Right?
Wrong. That’s so painfully, totally, ridiculously wrong.
Arts programs improve education, the economy, and individual potential. And it’s time for schools to equally fund the arts.
Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” He was right.
First, the arts enrich the education experience. It teaches students to critique, to look at things in a different way. It inspires creativity while challenging the intellect. Whereas education sparks the mind, the arts nourishes the mind and the soul.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and First Lady Michelle Obama believe that “the arts boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds that students will…graduate from college.”
The Dana Foundation found that the arts strengthen the brains’ attention networks, which improves cognition and memory, and thus improves academic and athletic performance by boosting concentration.
Many believe the economy is not poised to accommodate arts programs, but they couldn’t be more wrong. The arts actually fuel the economy.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis found that in 2011, arts and cultural production accounted for 3.2 percent, or $504 billion, of the GDP, and it employed 2.0 million workers, generating “$289.5 billion in employee compensation in the form of wages, salaries and supplements.”
Finally, the arts equip students with the tools needed in the professional world.
Arne Duncan claimed that arts education “is essential to stimulating the creativity and innovation that will prove critical to young Americans competing in a global economy.”
The arts teach creative and innovative thinking—thinking that can help companies both build new projects, and bounce back from project blunders. It allows people to think of new ideas, or better ways to get something done, or solutions to a problem.
Arts classes are not blow-off classes, or a niche for a few talented masterminds. The arts question, critique, and challenge. The arts enrich, improve, and inspire. The arts speak a universal language that anyone can understand, and anyone can learn. The arts make the world a more colorful place, and SMU grads should take the lead in insisting art be part of the curriculum in whatever city they live.
