By: Neda Ghomeshi / Assistant Opinion Editor
The study of the arts provides students an opportunity to actively participate in an imaginative world and can bring every subject to life, turning abstractions into a concrete reality. However, the challenges of this half of the century demand more time in the classrooms and less time with the arts.
I strongly believe that more time needs to be allocated to textbook education. Unfortunately, the continuously disappointing public education system in the United States promotes the arts while losing focus on textbook education. This is proving to be detrimental to our society as countries such as China and India continue to excel in math and science.
One of the most difficult issues that our society struggles with is the moral development of our adolescents. In this secular yet multicultural society, students are lost with no moral direction. Educators need to focus on teaching students about math, science, philosophy, current events and memorable occurrences. Through education, students will learn the concepts of right and wrong, and those concepts will become practices that are later applied to our nation.
Economic success is dependent on education standards because the global economy is a knowledge-based one. Today, the global economy is becoming much more competitive with more people earning a higher education. Children in our nation need a quality education in order to become engaged, productive and innovative citizens, allowing students to develop ideas that will improve our economy.
President Barack Obama believes that this nation is lagging behind in education, too. During his State of the Union address, he emphasized the importance of education in this rigorous global competition. He said, “We need to win the race to educate our kids.” I believe that in order for the U.S. to compete globally, proper education needs to be enforced and we need to take drastic measures in educating our students with only the necessary material.
Students are dedicating too much of their valuable time to the arts. In the process, they are losing focus on scientific education. According to the Time magazine, the U.S. is ranked 25th in math and 21st in science, putting us behind developing nations. This is a crucial reason why students need to spend more time in the classroom and less time in the art studio. With more focus on reading, science and other vital subjects, our students can comprehend the same concepts and strategies as students abroad.
Ellen Winner of Project Zero, an arts-education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said, “When kids take a lot of art [classes], they don’t improve in their core subject areas.” Although, I do believe the arts are beneficial, it should not dominate a child’s time in school.
Students have become so enamored with the study of arts that they have lost focus on non-art education. Americans are not earning the same education as students abroad because of the added focus on art in classrooms. Art is a great education to complement science, reading and math, but not a substitution.
Unfortunately, the nature of global competition is significantly different than it was half a century ago and the U.S. needs to be more cautious of dominating nations.
In order to excel in this rigorous competition, the U.S. needs to revamp the education system. The U.S. cannot lose focus on the fundamentals of learning and more time needs to be spent on textbook education.
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