Art and music classes should be abolished in all schools. There I said it! Actually, I never really thought about this until recently when we had to have budget cuts in our local schools. The outrage over cutting back on art and music classes was never ending and you thought the children would end up as boorish dolts without it. This made me take a second look at it and to start questioning the decision to have these classes in the first place.
Seriously, when was it decided that art and music should be standard classes taught to all children? Why art and music? Why not drama or band, too? Or here’s a better idea, why not classes in logic or ethics or things they might actually need when they grow up? What is the big deal in teaching art and music to children other than to give jobs to third rate artists and musicians? The more I thought about this the more I realized I not only agreed with the administration’s decision to cut these classes but I now think it shouldn’t have been offered in the first place. I know I sure wouldn't have missed them.
In grade school I despised art and music classes in the same way other children feared and hated gym class. I can’t sing. Even worse, I can hear how off tune I am but for the life of me I can’t find the right note. Heck, I can’t find any note on the scale. So it was embarrassing for me and painful for everybody when it was my turn to sing. And forget musical instruments. After two years of piano I still couldn’t find middle C on the keyboard! Hard to believe but I was even worse in art class. I couldn’t draw a straight line much less any type of picture. The undeterminable blobs on paper were cute when I was 5 but made me feel like an imbecile as I grew older. I was equally bad at mobiles, shadow boxes and anything requiring visual arts. To make it worse, I “inherited” this ineptitude from my parents so they were no help, either.
I do realize that the other purpose of art and music is to teach children to appreciate them; to broaden their knowledge of the “finer” things in life. If that is the case, why stop at art and music, why not also teach drama, ballet, band, cinema etc.? And who decides what is “good” art and music and what should be taught? Why is it that “old” is always considered to be better than “new”? Perhaps if they tried to try to cover other types of music and art it might have been more interesting but they only ever taught classical music (and I don’t mean the 1960’s). So year after year it is the same old dead artists and composers, except for that one when you had that one music teacher who tried too hard to be one of the kids by playing your music. And what other class was being shortchanged so that a 10 year old boy could listen to Bach (and most likely fall asleep)?
I admit to being impressed when my 6 year old niece looked at a print of Starry Starry Night that was on my wall and commented “I like your Van Gogh.” Wow. When asked how she knew this she said she learned it on Baby Einstein, a TV show. So again, who needs an art class if she is getting it elsewhere?
There are so many things to teach children today that I no longer see why we are using valuable class time for art and music. I would vote to eliminate these classes forever and instead teach students computer programming or science or spend more time on reading, writing and arithmetic. Yes I know that this is a very politically incorrect view. Too bad. Let kids appreciate art and music on their own time – use class time to teach them the skills they need to survive in this world.
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