Arts Education

I am currently taking a course titled Teaching the Performing Arts. For the class we are volunteering at local community centers to educate children in the arts. At my placement five other Santa Clara University students and I are in charge of teaching the first and second graders. We have only been once so far and I am already disheartened. At such a young age, the students are already very dismissive of the arts. In fact some do not even consider music, dance or theatre to be art. During our reflection on the question of what constitutes art, one of the little boys exclaimed, "I hate dance." I was heartbroken. As a dancer, better yet as an art lover, I could not believe that a boy so young would already have such negative feelings towards dance.

My experience at this community center made me wonder, what caused these adverse reactions to art? My strongest guess is the lack of a strong arts education program in their normal school day. The program, ArtsReach, that we are volunteering through, is great and a very honorable attempt at bringing arts to these children's lives, but it is not enough to do the trick. We do not have the budget, time or space to really introduce the kids to the wonders of art. And unfortunately the kids do not have the money to attend outside arts education. There is much research on the benefits of early and continued arts education in schools. It not only boosts creativity, but it also improves academic achievement and work ethic.

So, what are we going to do to change this? How are we going to get states to increase funding for arts education in the schools?