Anyone who knows me will tell you I've become fairly radicalized in the last few years. I guess it has something to do with the gig I have, or perhaps its just a matter of looking at the evidence again and again. Maybe its the fact that I live a lot closer to state politics than I used to. In any event, "radical" is probably the best way to describe my opinions. I'll begin with a proposition.
In 2012, a comprehensive arts education is the civil right of every student in West Virginia schools.
I didn't always think this way. It's not that I wasn't an advocate of arts education - I was. I just didn't think of it in those terms. I believed that the arts were core academic offerings. I still do. I believed that every student should have a comprehensive arts education. I just didn't frame it in terms of "rights."
So, why do I now?
Well, let's begin with the facts, the things that are undisputed.
First, we know that the arts are central to what it means to be an educated person. They always have been. If you disagree with that, you are a Philistine at best and an imbecile at worst. The idea that an educated person would be unfamiliar with the architecture of the Egyptians, the drama of the Greeks, the sculpture of the Romans, the poetry of the Hebrews, the calligraphy of the Chinese, the dance of the West Africans, the vocal polyphony of the Italian High Renaissance, etc., ad infinitum, is simply unthinkable. I would like to get in my Delorean and flog the idiot who coined the phrase, "The Three R's." Apart from his miserable capacity for spelling, he seems to have missed the point of education. It as, as Robert Hutchins once said, to unsettle minds, widen horizons, and inflame intellects.
Secondly, it has been one of the primary goals of the Republic, at least, when she was led by statesmen. I frequently quote John Adams on this point: " I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." Do you get the import of that?! Our second president believed all his efforts to establish a constitutional government by the people were to give his progeny the right to study the arts. While I would not suggest that this is the only purpose of a peaceful republic, what nobler pursuits can one imagine?
Lastly, let me point out all that we know about the benefits of a thorough education that includes the arts. The arts are engaging to students. The arts address the cognitive, affective, and physical needs of students. The arts allow students with exceptional needs to experience academic success in multiple subjects. Students from poverty perform better in school if they have the arts. In fact, students with an arts-rich curriculum outperform their peers in nearly every measure of academic success.
These are the facts, and they are undisputed. (Hat tip to Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men there.)
So what's the effin' problem? Why don't we have schools with comprehensive arts offerings?
The short answer is: because we choose to ignore the facts.
This should not be surprising. For most of us, beliefs matter more than facts. As a culture, we have come to believe a story about education, and the story tells us that the arts are somehow less important than language, mathematics, or the sciences. As Ken Robinson has noted, this is largely due to the fact that public education systems are the product of the Industrial Revolution. Simply put, we built education systems in this country (and around the world) the way that industrial barons wished them to be built. The skills necessary for work in the mine, the mill, or the factory were the ones that were taught. And not only were those skills and aptitudes taught, but so were those habits of mind: conformity, compliance, obedience, hierarchy, etc.
To suggest that this will not meet the present need is to simply state the obvious. Yet in my home state, there is simply no political decision that is made that is not beholden to the coal industry. I used to not believe that. I am wiser now. Come election day, voters in West Virginia will have a choice between a party that says they support coal and a party that says they really support coal. All else is secondary. West Virginia gets press for being anti-Obama because of its perceived racism. While I don't doubt that plays a significant role, the simple truth is that the president is perceived as being anti-coal. (I once was behind a coal truck in Mingo County with a bumper sticker that read: "Vote for Coal. It's Black, Too." True story.)
Another key belief has something to do with an individual's rights. Here in the U.S., we believe that property rights are sacrosanct. Now, I believe in personal property rights. I don't think that one has the right to seize the property of another, real or otherwise, without due process of law. I also don't support the massive redistribution of wealth. But English common law, the foundation of all of our notions about property rights, simply did not anticipate the fossil fuel industry. It is inconceivable to me that a few generations of industrialists have the right to seize billions of dollars of non-renewable natural resources without it redounding to the benefit of the greater society. It would be akin to draining the oceans of the world for profit while suggesting that no responsibility is owed to the culture at large.
"But coal companies pay taxes!" I know they do. Yet I also know that the counties in West Virginia that produce the most coal have some of the poorest school systems in the state. I do not think this is coincidental. For years, many of those school systems have been preparing those students for a life in the mines or on a tipple. I would argue that this was ethically indefensible from the start; now it is also economically untenable. Though the coal industry has historically been a major provider of work in our state, they increasingly employ fewer and fewer people to extract the same amount of minerals from the ground. This is just the nature of technological development.
There are very many who today talk about the need for school reform. They point to the changing nature of work in our country, and they are absolutely right. Very few of our students in West Virginia schools will be joining the rank and file in the mines upon graduation. Schools need to become places that allow students to succeed in a 21st century work force. This includes the arts. It is no longer necessary, for example, for a professional musician to live in Los Angeles or Nashville or New York or Chicago to work. Many work virtually, from their homes, irrespective of geography.
Yet even the changing nature of work does not begin to suggest the changes that need to happen in education today. To suggest that the primary role of public education is to prepare a workforce still presupposes that school systems serve the needs of industry. If we are to transform education, schools must become places where we serve the needs of our students. It is essential that our students leave schools prepared to make a living, but they also need to be prepared to make a life. This includes so much more than job skills. They need to be prepared to be informed citizens in the democracy. They need to learn how to live healthy lives. They need to love a life of the mind. And they need the arts.
If we allow that education is the right of every child who lives in West Virginia (as our state's constitution does), then it stands to reason that they have a right to an education that includes the arts. To deprive a child of an comprehensive arts education is to deprive a child of an education. Our schools are neither "thorough" nor "efficient" (as required by law) if they do not include the arts.
This was a finding of the original "Recht decision" (Pauley v. Bailey) in 1982. The West Virginia Supreme Court found that schools were in violation of a student's civil rights when they failed to meet certain criteria, including many in the arts. Thirty years hence we have made little to no progress on this front, even though it could be argued that the arts are more vital now to a child's education. Our technologies demand flexible, creative thinkers that arts classes foster. We have a society that requires visual literacy more and more. Dance provides another outlet for addressing our childhood obesity crisis. And fundamentally, the arts are part of what it means to be a human being - in our century, the same as any other.
When will we see this transformation in our schools? When we demand it. The history of civil rights in this country teaches us that little progress is made until it is demanded of legislators, policy-makers, and other power brokers. There have been advocates for arts education in this country for over a century. Everyone knows the benefits of the arts for our students. It is a "white hat" issue. Yet there are children who have school every day without dance, without theatre, without visual art, or without music.
I contend that we should teach dance every single day to children the same way we teach them mathematics. I believe that art matters as much as language. I think that theatre is no less important than science.
We need to abandon terms like "enrichment." Of course the arts enrich us - in precisely the same way literacy does. To be deprived of an arts education is to be consigned to educational poverty. Describing these disciplines as "related arts" or "encore subjects" likewise suggests that the arts are not for everyone, or perhaps are of lesser importance for some of our students. All West Virginia students need the arts. The data suggest that the arts are actually more important for students from poverty or with disabilities.
Students, parents, teachers, and community members should begin making these demands of their schools. We should not be satisfied with smiles and words of encouragement. Smiles and words are easy: change is hard. We are glad for the sympathy of others, but what we need is their action.
If West Virginia students are to meet their aspirations, all of us must begin demanding more art in school. I hope you'll join me.
No comments:
Post a Comment