Van Gogh Wants His F****** Respect: An Analysis of Art in the Modern World — Arts Education (Chapter 1)
Authors Note by Paolo Portillo
I’m deeply passionate about art as it has truly transformed my life in so many ways. It is one of the few areas that I believe to be truly undervalued and still deserves so much more respect, funding, and support more than ever. I was baffled at the lack of disregard for all creative endeavors by many professionals in varying artistic fields. I want to explore the importance of the arts and maybe convince a few others to lend a helping hand at keeping the artistic life alive and well. In this three part analysis, I will be looking at art in three sectors of our society; education, health, and politics. This is the first chapter.
Chapter 1: STEAM not STEM
The arts made me hate school a lot less. It sounds very counterintuitive since I’m writing a piece in school about a topic involving education but I just needed to put it out there for the purpose of this piece. In fact I may even like school as of now. But it has always felt like a trap of assimilation to a higher power from someone who decided everything that was made up. Math, Science, and the English language were all created by man. All of these things were determined before me. However, the one thing that kept me in school was everything that DIDN’T have to do with traditional academics. Art programs in schools were what kept me from acting on my suicidal ideations and even led me to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the states.
Before all of the very analytical talk, I wanted to give some background on me, not because I like talking about myself (which I really don’t) but to provide context as to why you, the reader, should even give a shit about this piece of writing you’re reading. I started playing the violin in the fourth grade. No, I don’t come from a musically inclined family. No, I am not some natural prodigy. I just saw someone play the violin and when my elementary school opened the music program to my class, I decided to pick it up. When I did, something clicked. There was a sense of release. I put all of the anger, the joy, the passion, and all of these weird feelings into this tiny piece of wood. It felt like I was making the rules and that I was in control. It gave me a sense of comfort knowing that there was no one to impose that what I was doing was “wrong” or “bad” because art is subjective. Even though I did sound fucking awful, people like my parents appreciated the effort into the craft of me attempting to play the instrument.
Throughout the country, art programs are being defunded in place of favoring subjects in the STEM field. In the Los Angeles School District, from 2008 to 2012, about 1/3 of all art teachers in the city were fired from their positions and art offerings for half of student’s in K-5 were reduced to zero (Teach and Kids Learn). However, people are not realizing how big of a fucking mistake this is.
“I can only talk from my own personal experience, but I’m sure it’s true. It just enlivens the entire experience of education,” John Lithgow, an actor from Netflix’s The Crown said, referring to the arts classes he took as a student. “It made me want to go to school, and it helped me figure out who I was” (edsource.org).
This further sentiment is also echoed by musical artist Dr. Dre.
“I’m all in on giving kids more access to music and arts education because creativity saved my life,” he said. “I want to do that for every kid in California” (edsource.org).
If the arts can pump out successful people with creative occupations and teach children values that go beyond the classroom, then how come it is still deemed as lower class, or even an “absurd field” to make a living off of? For me, growing up in a Filipino household, the only options that were normalized were to be in the medical field, become an engineer, or join the military. If you had aspirations that were outside of this realm, you were met with skepticism, ridicule, and dismissal from family for “throwing away” everything they gave you for moving to America. However, once I fell in love with theater, there was no turning back and I was ready for the fight.
According to a study done by the National Endowment for the Arts, rates of childhood arts education declined significantly from 1982 to 2008 and childhood arts education has not been equally distributed to low-income children and among African American and Hispanic children.
“Those whose parents had the lowest educational attainment (lowest socioeconomic status) were nearly 77 percent less likely to have had childhood arts education” (arts.gov).
My 5 thousand student public high school in Las Vegas resembles a similar sentiment. My high school teacher has expressed frustrations in the lack of funding for our shows in which the Theater Department only gets money from school fundraisers AND NOT from the school themselves. But it is not like my school doesn’t have any money. The administration at my school would rather spend money on sports, STEM organizations, and business ventures.
One of my favorite things about art is that there are no instructions. There are tools and techniques but there is no textbook telling artists that they are wrong. And in high school, when I found acting in the theater, this feeling of release was amplified ten fold. The arts have taught me freedom, how to be independent, and gave me a sense of ownership from a young age. Without it, I would have no idea as to what I would have done with myself.
In a study done in 2018, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on arts education in public schools across the United States have found improvements in other areas pertaining to life inside and outside the classroom.
“…evidence for the attributes, values, and skills that come from arts education, including social and emotional development, improvements in school engagement, as well as more vital civic and social engagement” (American Academy of Arts and Sciences).
And similar findings came to surface in research, which was co-directed by Dr. Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen, a professor who teaches education policy at Texas A&M, in which they looked at 42 elementary and middle schools in Houston, Texas.
“…students who had increased arts education experiences saw improvements in writing achievement, emotional and cognitive empathy, school engagement and higher education aspirations, while they had a lower incidence of disciplinary infractions” (New York Times).
Arts programs go beyond being a fun after school program. Like I said, I hated school. I hate it a lot less but that is because I do what I love, which is studying art. Because art has no limitations, has no rules, where life is your source and anything can be your canvas. Art invites and teaches people a sense of freedom that you cannot get from learning other subjects. In your traditional academic courses, you are taught the knowledge by someone else to listen, remember and regurgitate. But in art, the student becomes the teacher. They become the very person they are supposed to learn from. Being an artist teaches you to look outward into the world, to be curious, and to be your weirdest self. Breaking barriers and stereotypes is the very basis of art and nothing in school can teach you to find that inner part of yourself.
Also, having a creative occupation is financially valuable. Many seem to forget that arts and culture spaces bring in masses of money. In 2021, the arts contributed about 109 billion pounds to the United Kingdom economy (which is about 138,516,655,000 dollars) and about 1.02 trillion dollars in the US in that same year (bea.org). Yet, art programs are still being slashed. This is mainly due to this idea that art programs are still considered as “add-ons” to the “necessary” curriculum, when in reality art programs are part of the latter. At my local high school, the arts programs were merely reduced to one Theater teacher teaching three subjects; regular theater courses, technical theater, and costume/ make-up design. All three of these subjects require vastly different certifications and expertise but the school subjugates all three into one teacher to pay her less and to make it less of a problem for the administration. Meanwhile, sports teams like football, baseball, etc. are getting traveling trips, appearances on television, and promotion from the school’s administration. As I said, my high school had some money, but they just put it in other places. It would be a RARITY if someone from the school board came to see a theatrical show.
Jelena Trkulja, senior adviser for academic and cultural affairs at Qatar Museums, who moderated a panel entitled “When Arts Education is a Luxury: New Ecosystems” at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Florence, Italy, has stated,
“Part of why that is happening is that societies still don’t have a sufficient and nuanced understanding of the benefits arts education can bring, in terms of young people’s development. Arts education is still perceived as an add-on, rather than an essential field creating essential 21st-century skills that are defined as the four C’s of collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking and those skills are being developed in arts education” (New York Times).
There is a common theme from my own experiences, all of these testimonies, and study’s found; having arts education only benefits students, and in no way has any consequences whatsoever. A student is not suffering or being harmed by benefiting from additional teaching from the arts. I mean this paper is to ADD and equalize the value of arts education as well as the subjects already indoctrinated into academia. If anything, kids are suffering WITHOUT this one vital portion to their learning. I remember during my senior year in high school, my Pre-Calculus teacher doubted my ability to survive in college and thought doing theater was a waste of time. She saw my failing grades as a weakness instead of a learning opportunity to help me. But what really hurt me was that she valued my entire being from one lens and never considered me outside of class. Man did I prove her wrong. Not only did I go to college, but I am going to graduate from one of the top universities in the country, something that she would have never associated with me. And even though I was never good at math, I still got better grades in some areas, as my other academic classes had some improvement BECAUSE I did theater.
Another example of arts education benefiting the regular academic curriculum is the Public Middle School 223 in Bronx, New York. It is one of a few schools who have successfully integrated artistic methods into their classrooms. For context, this school is placed in one of New York’s lowest-income school districts and participated in a four-year arts integration program (Teach & Kids Learn). The results were staggering. There were many improvements across the board;
“An 8 percent improvement in Language Arts scores, 9 percent improvement in math scores, and less absenteeism” (Edvocate, 2016).
I am similar to these kids. They had improvements in other areas. Other classes. And it is merely because they integrated arts into their school. Now imagine this happening all across the country? Maybe the United States would possibly catch up to other countries in terms of education. I always got C’s and D’s in math class. I struggled in physics and chemistry. I was mediocre at English, but the idea of storytelling was interesting. I found school to be painful, useless, and unkind. However, doing theater and orchestra kept me there, day by day, one step at a time. When I hated my day, I had something to look forward to. Even if it was for an hour, it was the only time that I truly felt like myself. My weird, mentally-ill, emotionally sensitive, nerdy self. And no matter how rough my day would get, there would be art to make me feel less alone. I got better at school, became a much more open and empathetic person, and found a purpose in life purely from the arts. Having an education in the arts is just as important as the food you put in your body. People need the arts. It has its fingers in many facets of life and is there to better ourselves and those around us.
Works Cited
Freedberg, Louis. “Commentary: Addressing the Crisis in Arts and Music Education in California.” EdSource, EdSource, 15 Nov. 2022, edsource.org/2022/addressing-the-crisis-in-arts-and-music-education-in-california/664798.
What the Declines Mean for Arts Participation, www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/2008-SPPA-ArtsLearning.pdf. Accessed 5 Feb. 2024.
“New Report Makes the Case for Arts Education: Recommends Access for All.” American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 23 Nov. 2021, www.amacad.org/news/arts-education-report.
Brownell, Ginanne. “The Mind-Expanding Value of Arts Education.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 May 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/arts/design/arts-education-necessary.html.
Inc, Massive Media, and Rudy Azcuy. “Why We Should Care about the Decline of Arts Education in Our Public Schools.” Teach & Kids Learn (TKL), 8 June 2023, www.teachnkidslearn.com/why-we-should-care-about-the-decline-of-arts-education-in-our-public-schools/.
“Arts and Culture.” Arts and Culture | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/arts-and-culture#:~:text=Arts%20and%20cultural%20economic%20activity%20accounted%20for%204.4%20percent%20of,or%20%241.02%20trillion%2C%20in%202021. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.