We must hold ourselves — our parents, our students, our elected
officials, our school administrators — accountable on arts education.
Some of you may have read about the gridlock taking place presently up in Albany, the New York State Capitol. Basically, the State Senate is locked in place over the question of which party is going to be in power. And, there are some big-time bills that have been tabled as a result of this gridlock, including the bill on School Governance in the New York City Public Schools, aka “Mayoral Control.”
Senator Jose M. Serrano published an Op-Ed piece in today’s edition of the Gotham Gazette, which is an important local source for news of government in New York State. It’s published by Citizen’s Union, a good government organization.
Senator Serrano gets it, arts education being the “it.” And, he’s willing to work to make it happen.
It’s touching, and inspiring to see his leadership on this issue, and his willingness to partner with others.His father, US Congressman Jose E. Serrano, has been strong on this issue too.
Give this piece a read, please, I can assure you, he means what he says and it is without a doubt an honest expression of what he believes in and is working towards.
Click here to read Saving Arts Education from Politics, by Senator Jose M.Serrano.
The issue of arts education brings us to the basic question of what type of society we wish to build.
I am glad to have the support of Senator Serrano. I wish however that we all could craft better arguments than those based on utility. At this point the relationship between the arts and jobs, workplace skills and appreciation are based on research correlations only. We still have no solid evidence of the transfer of arts knowledge, skills and habits of mind in the workplace or the local or global economy. I for one would be happy to join the Senator and other concerned citizens to try to craft an argument for the arts and most importantly arts learning based on the qualitites of the arts processes that include cognition, socialization, physical and mental development, self-regulation and a deeper understanding of the world and people around us. (Posted on the Gotham Gazette site)
“We must hold ourselves — our parents, our students, our elected officials, our school administrators — accountable on arts education.”
Arts education is an integral part in allowing and aiding children to develop critical thinking, creative expression and basic thinking skills using the arts. Skills learned through arts education are transferable to other subjects such as math and science and can be extremely beneficial to special needs students and those learning english as a second language. It’s great that Mr. Serrano understands these facts. The Performing Arts Workshop is a non-profit out of Northern California that since it’s start in 1965 has understood quite well the importance of arts education and has worked to address the lack thereof by providing arts education workshops to at-risk youth in local schools and communities. To learn more about this great program, visit : http://www.performingartsworkshop.org