Our education system is in absolute shambles. Poor policies from both sides of the aisle have completely changed the way education works in America and its purpose. All we hear about is how we are behind China, and how the students there are excelling, while students here are failing. Test scores are considered the ultimate metric for measuring how are students are performing. Math and literacy are practically the only subjects any legislator finds worth mentioning. Funding for subjects like art and music that cannot be easily tested by a bubble sheet is slashed across the country. But without regular, well-funded creative outlets at schools, students will never excel to be great Americans; they will simply be great test-takers.
For many years I volunteered as a teaching assistant in the first grade at my local elementary school. At the beginning of the year, there was always an “About Me!” assignment that asked all the usual questions: what’s your favorite color, what do you want to be when you grow up, etc. One of the questions was always “what is your favorite class.” The vast majority of the time, students put down either art or music class.
Public education has become increasingly rigid. Teachers are forced to teach to the test, left with no free time to be flexible with teaching methods or to let children explore topics that interest them. The arts have always been a release for students stuck at desks all day, but today these arts programs are more important than ever. The stress and pressure from being in such a tight system with strict expectations for performance is overwhelming. Without a release, students who are not naturally inclined toward math or have a hard time reading begin to hate school. Countless children are left behind.
Like most states, funding for arts education in Tennessee is decreasing every year. There is no incentive for teachers to go into arts education because of lack of resources, poor salaries, and the new evaluation system. Teachers who teach classes that are more valued in today’s education system have an easier time following the guidelines of evaluations. Arts teachers have to find ways to check all the boxes off for their evaluations, even if those boxes don’t make any sense with what they’re teaching. Arts teachers are also often evaluated by how well other teachers in math and reading are doing. It all makes very little sense.
There are no signs of it getting any better. Obama is going forward with his education plan that takes away some of the rigidity of No Child Left Behind, but it still focuses on math and reading test scores above everything else. Romney plans to slash funding to “the arts” overall, whatever that means to him and the Republican Party. Tennessee legislators don’t seem to be planning on changing the teacher evaluation system any time soon.
I’m a math major with very little artistic talent. But art, for me, has always been something I could turn to when everything else in life gets stressful. There is no feeling on earth that compares to aggressively throwing paint onto a canvas tacked to the wall. If you haven’t tried it, put down this Beacon and go do it right now. It will change your life.
Keeping arts education in schools will introduce children to all the beauty and emotion of the world. Taking it away from children prevents them from becoming well-rounded, creative adults. Great test-takers will never make the best citizens.
— Lindsay Lee is a junior in mathematics. She can be reached at [email protected].
