Arts In Schools

Eighty percent of employers think every student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts (Power of Liberal Arts, 2013). Students in today’s society are formed to a “one-size-fits-all” learning system. With this system present in schools, students are slowly, but surely, becoming deprived of an open-minded, creative train of thought. The lack of arts programs in schools has led to an overall decrease in performance and quality intellectual thinking, while also placing art students at a disadvantage. Today’s education systems focus on scientific and technologic learning is creating a lack of arts in schools; leading to a structured mindset and little room for creativity in students. As technology advances and becomes a more prominent …show more content…
Although, should this truly be the case? Expanding from the world of science and technology lies an entirely other world away from problem solving and measurements. Schools have begun to forget this world away from science and in some instances have taken it to limits of cutting the arts budgets. Between the years of 1992 and 2012, budgets of the arts have declined by over four hundred million dollars (Stubbs, 2012). With the completion of acts such as budget cutting, this places the arts students at a disadvantage. If a school thrives for all students to accelerate in their education it is hard to explain why art students are stuck receiving the short end of the stick. Arts in schools not only allow for a creative, open-mind process of thinking, but it also is proven to lead to higher performance levels; not only in school but in everyday …show more content…
When tested in an elementary school classroom, studies showed that students who experienced no art or music activity each week scored lower on a mathematics test than those who participated in creative activity two to three times a week (Geist & Hohn, 2009). Whether it is a form of music or dance, artistic activity directs students away from the narrow mind set they have created in today’s schools. It leads to an open mind; almost a different way of looking at things. Imagination and creativity flourish in students involved with the arts. Creativity is an underlying necessity in the development of adolescents in today’s education systems. Without a creative factor, students end up viewing school as a dreadful place and become unmotivated—this results in poor performance levels along with significantly decreasing intellectual thinking in the minds of