A close friend, hearing me proclaim the need to “put the Fine Arts at the core of your children’s curricula” wrote with an honest, to-the-point questions (a vintage quiz show used to call this the “64-Thousand-Dollar Question”). She asked:
I agree that fine arts are essential, but what does it look like for them to be at the core?
My first response is this: it looks similar to the way adults place other valuable thing at the core of a child’s experience. Examples could include preparing nutritious food, stressing hygiene and exercise, teaching household skills, and above all, instilling values. We express and model these values. We offer our approval and approbation, both silently and visibly. We praise the child who helps load wood onto the back of a pick-up truck (even if it provides minimal help), who sorts socks and folds towels cheerfully (or not-cheerfully), who watches a young sibling, or who does any other kind of needed activity. We praise a child for expressing politeness or marching spontaneously across the yard to aid an older neighbor unload heavy groceries from the car.
Whenever possible, we point to news stories or read articles out loud that attest to the value of good, moral, and measured actions. We say that these things are essential qualities for a good life and are needed now more than ever. We put these things at the core of family life. Slowly, over time, an understanding passes from adult to child of how such actions build character and influence the course of the child’s future.
The process is no different with placing an awareness, understanding, and appreciation for the Fine Arts at the core of a student’s learning. Children fortunate enough to grow up in a home filled with music, dance, theater, and art receive daily confirmation. The message is always sounding: the arts matter, the arts express deep and important values, the arts shape us, feed our souls, stimulate our minds, discipline our emotions, and change our lives. In today’s culture, though, the majority of children do not enjoy this benefit in everyday life.
Still, we can trust two things: traditional structures and gently acquired, spontaneous experiences. Traditional structures like music and art lessons, study of dance, singing in a choir, playing in a band, participating in theatrical productions clearly will make a difference. These kinds of structures may be difficult for some to access. Furthermore, some children will fight tooth-and-nail against them (this is nothing new, alas, and presents an extra challenge to parents and teachers).
On the other hand, if access has been an obstacle, an amazing solution exists today in that double-edged sword known as the Internet. Virtually anyone can access the Fine Arts on line. At any hour of the day, up pops beginning or advanced classes in drawing, painting, sculpting, mosaics, making your own pigment, gold leafing, and all kinds of crafts taught by top artists (and many are free). The Internet abounds now with master-classes posted by magnificent teachers who demonstrate (usually winsomely) the hands-on process of showing young artists how expression and technique in music really work (one of my favorite is the series offered by conductor Benjamin Zander). The Internet brings an endless list of fine productions into the home and classroom: everything from Shakespeare’s finest dramas to the world’s most beloved ballets, operas, and orchestral masterpieces. In short, geographical and financial limitations to performances and, to a degree, training have largely fallen away. It only remains to help parents and tutors learn about these resources and find them.
Remember, too, that the source of training and inspiration in the Fine Arts doesn’t have to be the professional organizations. An elderly neighbor on the corner may be a superb watercolorist or have a shelf full of trophies from when he was a Thespian in high school. Such people often mourn the lack of ways pass their skills and passion on to the young. Ushering or assisting in the building of sets and costumes for the community theater can plant a life-long passion for drama, Even attending (suffering through?) the 7th-grade band concert opens the world of concert music more than adults may realize. Remember, to a 2rd-grader, those 7th-graders are quite grown up and masterful in what they do.
No matter what the source of the artistic instruction and edification, such studies and experiences ought not be viewed as an elective or a something fun to be tacked on at the end of the day, provided there is time. Conventional wisdom says: “Do the math first while the mind is fresh.” Let me recommend you do the study of the Fine Arts first so that the mind will be even fresher, more expansive, better tuned to the next roster of studies. Do the music so as to prepare for acoustics or physics. Do the art or dance so as to be receptive to geometry, chemistry, biology. The power of the Fine Arts to foster every other study (history, literature, geography, science) was, until recently, well well understood and celebrated.
Look at it another way: a child would never be told, “You can brush your teeth before bedtime if you get to them, or if you’re not too tired.” Nor would that child be told, “Maybe you should eat a bite of broccoli after you’re stuffed yourself with meatloaf, potatoes, gravy, and bread.”
We do our best at this site to offer many types of structured study to help you put the arts first. We appeal to all ages and have a wide variety of courses, webinars, listening journeys, and other seminars because we understand the necessity of structured study.
But the Fine Arts are bigger than any course or structured study. They beckon us in spontaneous ways. Few things are more valuable for children than singing hymns, folk songs, or songs from musicals in the car or under the stars at a campground. Tremendous artistic understanding comes from visiting a craft fair in the park, especially if a child can stand and watch an artist blow glass, twist strands of silver into earrings, or burn the outlines of a wolf into a piece of wood. Sometimes, an expressed interest can lead to the chance to visit that artist’s workshop. Seeing inside a shop where guitars, violins, or wind instruments are made changes a child’s understanding of music and science. Walking through the racks of a store that sells professional leotards and shoes to real dancers writes another chapter (consider doing this after watching clips on line about what dancers go through or how they devote hours to customizing their pointe shoes).
Find, if you can, an arboretum or botanical garden advertising a community work day. This type of experience teaches a young laborer (and younger ones who look on) what is required to ensure the beauty and integrity of the grounds. Create a spontaneous drama after going to a second-hand book store or library and buying a few playscripts. A child will long remember an afternoon (or morning) where scenes are read aloud by parents, siblings, or classmates, especially if accompanied by lemonade, hot chocolate, and home-fashioned sound effects.
Clearly I could write dozens more paragraphs of examples. Any of these activities, or the ones I haven’t described, convey the message that the arts are a core element of our human experience. I do realize that such activities take planning and commitment (and a casting-off of the idea that the arts are an elective). But the rewards begin quickly if you teach a child that the arts are a broad, deep well from which comes much of the water that our souls drink.
Along with a budding, growing of the historic and contemporary arts (for they must learn to discern and not become victims to the noise around them), studying the arts accords children a new sets of skills, not just for “doing” something expressively, but for seeing and valuing the complex world around them.
Yes, the Fine Arts give a child new eyes, new ears, new limbs, and new hands. The arts connect the past and present better than any history book can do. They freshen the mind and open up the path to math and science. They create real channels for older, accomplished people to pass on our most valuable cultural treasures and the wisdom that comes with them. Making the Fine Arts a core means wrapping a child’s studies around a skein of gold threads that can be stretched endlessly and woven into every corner of that child’s academic, spiritual, and family life.
How this core looks and functions will be different for each family and classroom. But it will stand at the center, never depleted in power or capability, daily showing a child how diligence, discipline, patience, sound, motion, and color all come together the magic of human creativity. Each of these qualities is an inexplicable gift from the Divine to characterize, uplift, and distinguish our human lives. And there can be no greater core than cultivating a child’s realization of that fact.