(draft of a yet-to-be-published foreword to a school publication focused on the arts in our curriculum. Some of this material is adapted from a short address I gave on the same subject in May 2006, archived here at the Word Sanctuary.)
For a minute, let’s put aside stats about art students’ high achievements on tests, and just look at what our children do in their arts classes. Then you’ll know what arts do for our children.
You’ll see that art isn’t about career skills for a handful of “creative” people, but practice for leaders in any field.
Our children start from scratch. What teaches self-confidence more than overcoming the fear of making the first sound, word, move, or mark?
Of course, they’re also learning that old adage about inspiration and perspiration, starting over again and again until it – whatever “it” is – arrives at what they imagined. Forget about grades: they know when it’s right. People outside the arts think this is some mysterious talent called creativity, but it’s only the perseverance to find what you want. Michelangelo said that sculpting a horse was easy: You just chip away everything in the marble that doesn’t look like a horse.
Our children practice seeing what other people miss. Drawing is always about “seeing what’s there, not what you think is there.” Acting involves searching a text for clues, and noticing even the lines that aren’t written – what the character thinks while another character speaks. The musician sees a row of notes, but looks for patterns that are clues to phrasing. Outside the arts, we call that analysis, and it sounds pretty dull. In arts class, seeing and finding are a source of excitement and energy.
Our children combine things in new ways. That’s what composition means (Latin, “putting together”) and why that word applies equally to making music, writing words, and designing any visual art. Of course, outside of the arts, we call it thinking to look for connections where no one else sees them. Nothing mysterious about genius: it can be practiced, and that’s what art classes teach every day.
Our children try other perspectives besides their own. Our young actors imagine how another must feel, and practice making that feeling visible to an audience. Our children write and draw from particular perspectives, attending to place, mood. Of course, they’re always aware of the perspective of the viewer, and wondering how to communicate to that person. If we call this practice empathy, we recognize that this piece of arts education is the quality often missing in managers and leaders who don’t measure up.
Our children learn to collaborate. Often they work in small groups, and other times a director or conductor defines the overall vision. Either way, our students must take responsibility for their own parts. They identify problems, brainstorm solutions, respond to changes, and revise the project in progress in a way that everyone can live with. That’s what people outside the arts call leadership, and in the arts, everyone does it.
Finally, our children grow to connect their other classes to themselves and to each other through art. A graduate of the class of 2006 told me how he found interest in academics when he saw possible connections to his ongoing projects. His remark reminded me how the arts did something similar for me. For example, reading a soldier’s poetry from No Man’s Land brought all the names and dates of World War I home to me. Singing Renaissance motets in chorus and viewing early American art helped me to get into the minds of people who had seemed impossibly remote. Hearing a teacher’s comment that poets reduce complex experience to simplest terms, I suddenly understood what I’d been doing in math and computer programming classes. If you’ve had a similar epiphany, thank a good arts program.
So, in the pages ahead, see how Walker students pursue the arts every day, making art from everyday material. As Arts Month director, I’m making that the theme for this year’s Pursuit of the Arts Month: Art every day, Everyday art: finding the extra in the ordinary.
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