Art to the Rescue

The teaching of art, at least in elementary school, isn't what it used to be. Gone are the days when you trace your fingers to make a turkey or spend weeks learning to paint a tree. Art teachers today use all types of media--yarn, paint, clay, beads--to help kids find the artist inside. Each child is successful; if you can't paint a tree, you can weave a mat. If you can't weave a mat, you can shape a pot. If you can't shape a pot, you can copy Matisse and produce a cutout. At day's end, each kid is an artist.

Which makes me wonder about all the handwringing over the state of education today. Good news, of course, goes unreported, so people don't know the amazing work in art and music and drama taking place in many of our schools. And, of course, some schools have dropped these programs altogether, so there's nothing to report. But if art teachers can find ways to educate kids and bring out their talent, why can't teachers of academic subjects do the same?

Perhaps the spirit of creativity and flexibility that underlies the teaching of art needs to be restored to the teaching of math and reading. Where there used to be time for academic teachers to engage their students through a variety of media--not unlike art teachers--they're now forced to prepare their students for standardized tests. If you feel a big yawn coming on, you're not the only one.

The tests are boring. Practice worksheets come home constantly. And despite the effort to make the tests inclusive and multicultural, the fact that Miguel buys 10 pounds of apples instead of Michelle doesn't eliminate the tedium. Standardized tests have an occasional place in education, but the everyday use of them has rendered inspired, creative instruction obsolete.


Thank God for the artists. In these bleak days when the "Race to the Top" means more standards and more tests, I'll take a sunflower any day. And it doesn't even need to be yellow.