I have known exactly what I want to be when I grow up since I was in preschool.
Yet, as I have tacked years onto my schooling experience, I have learned what occupations provide success, and what simply do not.
In preschool, it didn’t matter to me that every boy in the class wanted to be a firefighter, and every girl wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be an artist. In preschool, I didn’t know that the average annual salary of an artist is approximately $50,000. In preschool, I didn’t know Art Education is at the very bottom of the list of priorities for most high schools.
Now in high school, I know the average artist’s salary and I know the amount of importance high schools place on their Art programs. I still want to be an artist when I grow up. But, thankfully, school has taught me I must differentiate between what I want to do, and what I am going to do.
School: a place to foster growth and encourage curiosity.
Yet, as schools implement the Common Core curriculum, and threaten to cut the art and music programs due to “lack of student interest”, I have begun to lose faith in the education system’s ability to carry out their intended job.
The Common Core curriculum was created to provide everyone with the exact same opportunities to gain the skills necessary for life after high school. Common Core will also guarantee the ability of students to collaborate and compete with their peers upon entering the real world.
Upon implementation, although a few beneficial aspects are gained, many are lost. Such uniformity demands an evaluation in order to make sure every single student truly does get the same chances to learn, and what better way to evaluate the teachers’ work and the students’ understanding than standardized tests? In order to meet standards, teachers must not waste a single day teaching material outside of the lesson book. You know what that means — no more innovative projects, no more little field trips to glean knowledge outside of the classroom, no more time for all of that “extra stuff”. Inventive and imaginative teachers are unnecessary when all the school needs is someone who can teach out of a lesson book. Creativity is pushed aside for what is thought of as intelligence.
But what they don’t know is intelligence is not just the ability to answer multiple choice questions correctly. Intelligence is not just the ability to complete short answer questions at a rapid pace. Intelligence is not the ability to write an essay exactly the way the test makers want it to be written. Intelligence is none of these things, nor one of these types of things: intelligence is a diverging branch that extends in many different directions, reaching out and touching upon all aspects of and actions that keep our world from spinning off track.
The concept of multiple intelligences proves it to be true that fish should be judged on how well they can swim, and monkeys on how well they can climb trees. That which is forced will always struggle to find the key to success.
For, if someone cannot eat eggs due to an allergy, the doctor does not force the eggs upon them because they need the protein. The doctor finds another outlet for the person to get protein in their diet: perhaps an alternate food choice, or a supplemental vitamin. Therefore, if someone cannot learn information through lectures and solely audio instruction, the student should not be forced to sit in lectures because they need the information. In fact, it will probably be more harmful than it is helpful to the student. Instead, the solution lies in an option specific to that person: every single person who exists is unique, and cannot be treated in the same way. Perhaps that student is more attentive to information when presented visually, or when it is a hands-on project; all they know is that they are “slow”, or have a “learning disability” because they can not learn strictly upwards like most of the other kids.
It is schools that strap those budding minds to straight sticks to ensure linear (and only linear) growth (now starting as early as kindergarten!!). Once a seed, now a sprout — young students burst through the dirt: stems stretching young leaves through the new air, craving fresh water and sunlight. Yet, when the bus finally arrives at the school, the children are herded quickly into the building, the doors are shut and locked, and the ticking of the time they owe that day has officially begun.
As time passes, the sprouts become accustomed to one, direct line of growth. There is only one way to grow: up. Up is logical. Sprouts that naturally grow to the side, or crooked, are yanked upward by the hands of our big brother, and held in place with tape and a nice guide stick. Logical means only one answer, and up is logical.
And it is thanks to the high stakes of standardized testing that have sculpted a certain view of an “intelligent individual”: someone who has both linguistic and logical intelligence. Those are only two out of the eight multiple intelligences founded by Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University. Thus, those students who find more success when it comes to spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist and existential tasks think they are not “intelligent”.
Setting aside all detrimental effects of such a mindset instilled in students at a young age, how does one even begin to plan on being successful in the real world when they are only book-smart?
The Real World: a place where problems are encountered everyday, and success is measured by how well one can react to and quickly resolve these issues.
Thus, to be successful after high school is to be a problem solver, and the kinds of problems faced after high school do not typically include figuring out what a synecdoche does or how to solve a logarithm. To problem solve is to paint a picture: each action from the initial stroke to the final brush must be carefully considered. An artist constantly thinks in advance about how the actions they take will affect the overall product. They must use different methods to solve unique issues as they encounter them. Through art, the muscle of imagination is exercised, and as it grows stronger and stronger, it begins to be able to lift some of the weight in areas other than just painting.
This strength is invaluable: it was once said, “But art facilitates the learning of everything else.”
For in complex classes, it is creativity that allows us to stretch our brains around abstract ideas; in writing, it is creativity that provides us with the eloquence and elegance to sculpt words into a striking, living and breathing creature; in seemingly hopeless situations, it is creativity that digs us out of the ground, pokes at the unknown, and stumbles upon the turnaround piece to the puzzle.
For again, it is creativity which accepts eccentric theories and peculiar pursuits as acts of ingenuity; it is creativity which allows the thought process to temporarily stray into an alternate and limitless mindset to discover extravagant ideals; it is creativity which, in the realm of society, enables us to applaud divergent thinking and out-of-the-box-ideas, and avoid condemnation to a solitary way of existence; it is creativity which is the heedlessness to limits that pays to extraordinary advancements; it is above all creativity through which innovation is born. So, without art, how would we adopt creative ways of thinking? And without creativity, where would we be now?
In the Renaissance era, the arts were of the highest value. Yet, as time has inevitably passed, the world has changed its views on who the most valuable innovators are. Somehow, the arts have fallen to the waist side, as the core subjects include only English, math, science and social studies. Somehow, art is the first thing to go when budget cuts must be made; art teachers are brought down to their knees begging students to take certain classes the following year in order to save their jobs. Somehow, schools think they are prioritizing by focusing on math, science, English… But what they don’t know is creativity is the foundation that supports the construction of the rest.
Or they do know.
They know, but fail to care. Or the care, but fail to enact change. When it comes to growth, capital captures the eyes of the greedy. Transparent utilitarianism is the ultimate goal. Through a shallow scope, money is power, and something difficult to overlook in a money-driven world. So, to be undeniable, or to obtain a clear cut answer, is to be intelligent and of worth, at a quick glance. But, creative means never only one answer.
To plant a penny of a seed and yield a money tree is much more desirable than fostering a seed of a young child’s mind into a tree of ever-extending branches, constantly prodding at the unknown. But, who would, or even could, ever feel such a way?
Well, as soon as the higher power from above cuts funding, or the budget drops, those who “foster growth and encourage creativity” must prioritize. So schools are left with no choice but to cut the programs they feel they could do without. But, they ignore the fact that without the cultivation of creativity that takes place in said art classes, success in the “core” classes will never stray from linear.
While linear intelligence may create a steady rate of success, it is the creative mind that produces exponential success. It is the greatest inventions that are born through risking the stretch of a branch just far enough to the side to touch upon ingenuity. But who am I to blame when I share the same reasoning as to why I could not pursue a career in art.
