In their April issue, Phi Delta Kappa Journal has reprinted my blog post, Let’s Get Rid of Art Education In Schools. Gulp.
In their April issue, Phi Delta Kappa Journal has reprinted my blog post, Let’s Get Rid of Art Education In Schools. Gulp.
Danny Gregory 
I teach art and I don’t hate you!
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This is one of your best pieces!
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I think I read this when you posted it and do not remember disagreeing with you. I also do not want to pay the $100 dollars to sign up to get the annual membership though it is probably a bargain. So is there a way to find this post? By the way remember SBS is a jewel and what Koosje and you came up with is a world treasure. Be wary of those trying to “help” you make it better. The basic 6 week kourse is a diamond and it is hard to improve on a diamond. That said, Have fun.
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Sorry! I forgot to add the link to the original post. It’s up there now. This blog also has a search function so you can always find stuff if I do a braind-ead thing like that again.
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No need to apologize Danny. Sometimes I need help getting around blog pages. I don’t mind looking up things, so while links are easy all I need is a reference. Sometimes I have a hard time adding links to my posts. I will get there eventually. I did use the search funtion and read the article, I also found my comment which was fun for me. My gosh last year huh?
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Perhaps it should stay, just change how it’s taught! Make it like Sketchbook Skool! More freedom to do your own thing, tons of inspiration and encouragement!
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AWESOME!
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I hate to think what what’s his name, that new prez of yours – will do with what’s left of it. (As far as I know it’s not so great up here in Canada either.)
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I’m an art teacher and think you do fabulous things for kids. We all come to our creativity in different ways. We need your ideas AND your great humor too!
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I don’t hate u
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Wait to miss the point of arts education. You don’t teach art, music, dance, or theater to improve other subjects, you teach them because they have their own inherent value. You’re an author, a self appointed commentator and reformer of education who literally admits being “no expert on education” about 3 paragraphs in on an article calling for a major shift in education. Is self proclaimed ignorance and then calling for changes based on that ignorance a step towards creativity?
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If your only response is to my resume rather than my ideas, I’m sorry. But I believe your outrage is misplaced.
I was simply offering a thought starter. If you’d prefer, I’ll stick to things I have a degree in and leave you to sort it out.
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Actually, I replied completely to your point of why we teach the arts. To repeat – it’s because of their own inherent value…not to teach another subject or creativity. Read my first two sentences (typo aside of course *wait=way) Conveniently ignoring my actual comment about why we teach arts and not sharing your opinion because you feel personally affronted by quoting your own admission that you aren’t an education expert is hardly a resume only response. Your thought starter is actually an instigator and hardly constructive. It shows ignorance that you proclaimed yourself a reformer because you merely have an opinion but no real experience in education. You might want to get some of that before calling for a major reform.
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a “thought starter” that art education should be eliminated? that’s not a thought that should be started.
I think a lot of arts teachers would prefer that you leave them to sort it out–with this kind of friend, who needs enemies?
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also, his response was about how you missed the philosophical purpose of teaching the arts–if you thought he was responding only to your resume, I’d suggest that it’s you who missed the point.
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I am a music teacher. I am close with many others, as well as other arts educators. I read the article, and I don’t see the same things you do. Perhaps we’re looking for different things, or in different places, but teaching art is, inherently, creativity, and likewise, creativity is art. To create and cultivate and express can be a messy process (try giving a bunch of 12 year olds glorified noise-makers and have them collaborate to create something beautiful…go ahead, I’ll wait), but to an educator, we see these things that may look like “frivolity, an indulgence, a way to keep kids busy with scissors and paste” as the buds that will grow into the creative concepts you later address. Art education is not an ideal- it’s real and tangible and exists. We teach kids to create and to appreciate the world on a new level. We teach the “boring, irrelevant” classics not because of mandated curriculum, but because Mozart still has something to say and teach us. Creating pinch pots teaches the discipline and structure needed to BE creative. It’s not always about what’s created, it’s about what the art and creation means. AND, as a previous commenter posted, it’s ok for art to be created for it’s own sake. Much like your article, it spurs discussion and thought. Those things are not for a high-brow crowd; those things are for ANYONE looking for meaning. Every art/ music/ theater room I’ve ever seen has these things. It teaches these things. You just have to know where to look. And honestly, if the STEM teachers aren’t allowing creativity to happen in their classrooms, perhaps it’s not the arts that need to be cut. Creativity can’t be an explicit class, because that isolates it as something “Else” to be considered. Creativity should be inherent in all we do, all the time. The arts give purpose, life, and meaning to the things we do. The arts molds our culture, and tells the story of us. If you’re not seeing this when you look at art educators, please look again. We are here making the world a better place.
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