Running Head: ARTS EDUCATION

Community Problem Report: Arts Education

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

April 16, 2017

Zayra Mojica
 Abstract

The Arts Education has always neglected, suppressed, and underappreciated, no matter if

its in the elementary school education all the way up to universities education. Whenever a

school has financial problems, the first places to cut funds for are classes and or clubs related to

the fine arts. Principals, teachers, and even students find Arts Education to be a waste of time and

money. The general public, unless they have an interest in art related things, have a negative

view on Arts Education. To get an understanding of the negative views Arts Education gets,

many people have a negative stigma against college students that get degrees in Art, or Music.

There are Arts enthusiast college students that are afraid to go into careers, because of the

negative responses they get from their families and friends.

People that want to follow their creative paths, are often discouraged to follow those

paths, to conform into what is acceptable to society standards. Theyre forced to keep doing what

they love, until they can longer handle it or learn to live an unhappy life. Despite all the negative

views on Arts education, it can completely make a difference in everyones life. Whether youre

a child or an adult, Arts Education can affect individuals in many different ways.

Keywords: Arts Education, Art Appreciation, Student Development, Student Motivation, Role

of Education
 Introduction

According to many different sources, Arts Education has always lacked funding, and

enforcement in schools. Associate Professor of Education, at California Lutheran University,

Maureen Reilly Lormier has stated how Arts Education is forgotten and set aside when compared

to the other subject like Math, English, Science, or History (2009, p. 9). They state whenever

schools lack funding for education, the Arts funds are always first to be sacrificed for the rest.

When the Arts funding is cut, the students suffer tremendously, but no one seems to do a thing

about it. Most of the time when a fine arts class needs funding, students are forced to fundraise

money for their own education. It is clear Arts Education gets neglected especially when

compared to the other school subjects, but how can we keep this from happening, with proper

knowledge this can be preventable. This report will cover the benefits Arts Education has to

students, how to prevent Arts Education from becoming neglected, and what anyone can do to

bring awareness to this conflict.

The Benefits of Arts Education

As I stated before Arts Education is often neglected, but thats because the actual benefits

of Arts Education is not known to the common person. Students face many struggles from lack

of having Art influenced education in their everyday life. According to Catherine Grytting, an

elementary teacher in Seattle believes Art fosters the joys of learning, while still covering all the

different learning styles a student may need to understand a topic better (2000, p.66). It covers

the spatial, kinetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal learning styles. Art supports emotional

growth; it inspires students, and it teaches them how to become leaders. Not only does it do all
that, but it also affects the development of a student mentally and emotionally. Art affects

students more than we believe it does.

People do not understand how Arts Education actually benefits students education.

Cesarone connects Art and Music to learning, by sharing the techniques he uses with his own

students. He states that, the Arts foster an understanding of people in their cultures, (Cesarone,

1999, p.52), this is possible because works of art capture history. Art works teach students the

difference and similarities cultures may have just by visually analyzing what they see. Art gives

students a visual image of history that would be

impossible to imagine. The Arts affect students not only

with just regular art, but also with music, dance, and

drama. These different activities stimulate different

senses that improve a students significant skills.

Recent experiments have been made to see how

much Arts influenced education affects students. Four

university Psychology majors created two experiments

involving elementary students. These experiments

mention the benefits of Education in a cultural, academic and economic aspect, (Sowden,

2015, p.128). In one experiment they had one group of kids do an improvised dance for a

performance, while another group of kids learned a non-improvised choreographed dance. The

children that were involved in the improvised dance showed better creative, and thinking skills.

By allowing children to use their brains to be creative, they are able to exercise their minds in

more ways than one.

 Another way Arts Education is beneficial is it keeps students from dropping out of

school. Three professors followed the dropout rates in a high school where it is not mandatory to

take fine art classes for five years. They believed that, students that take fine art classes have a

lesser chance to drop out of school (Kathleen and others, 2015, p. 39). By having a way to let

student let out their creativity, it keeps them stress free, and from dropping out of school.

How to Support Arts Education

Greer, a Professor at the University of Arizona, focuses on the issues and problematic

areas relating to the Arts. As I mentioned before the lack of funding really affects a students

Education, but there is another problem that makes it an even bigger disadvantage. Greer states

that When compared to other school subjects, Arts Education seems to never advance, (1983,

p. 87). He brings up the point that subjects like Science are always changing as new discoveries

are made, but as for fine art classes they seem to rarely change over a long period of time. Arts

Education is always expanding in different ways, but it gets ignored by everyone. For a student

to learn to the best of their ability they need the most advanced information that they can get.
 To stop problems like these from happening, Goodwin, a university administrator,

believes by supporting Arts Education publically itll bring awareness to it. He states that If Arts

Education got more recognition in the public eye, it would get funded more and pushed more

into a students education, (Goodwin, 2005, p. 557). Basically the more Arts Education is in the

public eye, the more the public will care about it, and be passionate to help fix the problems it

has.

Conclusion

Even though the problems involving Arts Education are not very prominent, they should

be made aware to the public. Not all schools suffer from problems like this, but a lot of schools

in the United States suffer from this. The use of Arts

Education affects students more than we thought it

would. Art influenced education greatly impacts

students mentally, and emotionally. It inspires them and

teaches them skills they never knew they could have.

Having a perfect education for a child is inevitable, but that does not mean we cannot have it be

perfected.
 References

Cesarone, B. (1999). Benefits of Art and Music Education. Childhood Education, 76(1), 52.

Goodwin, C. D. (2005). Kenneth Clark: His Case for Public Support of the Arts. History of

Political Economy, 37(3), 557-592.

Greer, W. (1983). Arts versus Art Education. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 17(1). 85-92.

Grytting, C. (2000). The Benefits of Art Education. Forum: Thoughts to Share. Arts & Activities,

127(3), 66.

Kathleen Thomas, M., Singh, P. & Klopfenstein, K. (2015). Arts Education and the High School

Dropout Problem. Journal of Cultural Economics, 39(4), 327-339.

Lorimer, M. R. (2009). Using Interdisciplinary Arts Education to Enhance Learning. Principal,

88(3), 8-12.

Sowden, P. T., Clements, L., Redlich, C., & Lewis, C. (2015). Improvisation Facilitates
Divergent Thinking and Creativity: Realizing a Benefit of Primary School Arts

Education. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity & the Arts, 9(2), 128-138.