Monday, October 1, 2007

The arts (music, dance, visual arts, etc.) are vitally important to students' education and should therefore receive as much emphasis as mathematics,

The arts (music, dance, visual arts, etc.) are vitally important to students' education and should therefore receive as much emphasis as mathematics, science, reading and other mainstream subjects."

In today’s modern society, most educational institutions strive to provide a curriculum that balances between the arts and hard sciences. However, there is an ongoing debate between the value of the arts as compared to hard sciences in education. Some argue that hard sciences or other mainstream subjects should be given more priority as it provides more of a practical value in the real world. On the other hand, proponents of the arts in education suggest that the arts hone the creativity and hidden impulses of a student. In my opinion, I believe that it is important to strike a balanced medium between the two. To place an exaggerated emphasis on the value of either one is unfair for both the arts and other mainstream subjects hone the students’ minds in different ways.

The purpose of education is to equip students with knowledge and skills that can be used throughout the life of a student. True, subjects such as mathematics and science have a more quantifiable value for they are basic skills that can used in many disciplines. For example, mathematics is a skill that can be used either in the business arena, to calculate personal finances or to be used in the scientific sphere to calculate formulas. However, one should also consider the values that arts can contribute to the daily life of a person. Consider the value of the arts. The arts are able to hone other aspects of thought that mainstream subjects are unable to hone—creativity, appreciation of beauty, individualism and so on.

Though new discoveries are constantly made in the disciplines that require knowledge of hard sciences, the truth is this: Disciplines that are firmly ingrained in hard sciences are limited fields. Hard sciences are formulaic and work from a limited framework of understanding. We are bound by formulas, physical constraints, and previously established theories. Though it trains a person to think analytically, it could potentially lead a person to just think in terms of constraints and limitations and therefore lead to a stagnation of creativity. Creativity is an essential component in any discipline for it enables us to view things from different perspectives. A person limited by established ideas and training would be unable to generate new product ideas for the consumer market, or invent new technologies that have never come across the human mind before.

The education of arts is subjective for the expression of art comes from within the artist himself. Each person is different, and an expression in the arts might reveal facets of the human mind that has never occurred to another person before. Each expression of the arts-- whether it is expressed in a painting, a play or a sonnet—reflects the experience of the artist of the time. As an example, a student exposed to works of the Surrealist era would be exposed to a time where people are rebelling towards a mostly conservative society. The arts is a form of culture containment and with the implementation of education of the arts, students are exposed to culture and views of people of the past.

It is undeniable that mainstream subjects such as mathematics, science and reading is an important part of a student’s educational process. However, if we only take this narrow scope into consideration, one could easily overlook the values that the arts can provide a person.

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