A creator in my Odyssey community got the opportunity to ask Ben Shapiro a question about arts programs.
Shapiro’s answer was "the arts and music programs are great, don't get it twisted, they're great, I have kids who love their musical opportunities but, let me stress that, but they are not essential to our educational career goals.
You're never going to go for a job interview and claim playing the, I don't know, f*cking flute helped you earn. Master's. Our STEM programs, our engineers, our mathematicians, they need our financial aid and our support to keep America running. Does that make sense?"
As a Creative Writing major I feel compelled to respond. Yes, STEM programs are super important and we need more people to go into them.
So many people view engineering and math especially as non-glamorous career choices. However, that’s not to say that art is useless. In fact, lately several people and organizations have been including it in the acronym: STEAM.
That’s because artistic skills can greatly enhance other skills.
Artists are some of the most dedicated people I know, often spending 8 hours or more on one drawing, or spending weeks of their time rehearsing for a play or perfecting a piece of music. T
his kind of focus is greatly sought after by employers. Many people struggle to reach the end of an 8 hour workday.
Artists are more observant and make more connections than non-artists. Teaching children how to notice small details and observe the relationship between two things, such as light and space for a painter or photographer, or movement and sound for a dancer or theater performer, can be helpful even in non-artistic fields.
Noticing a small error in data can save hours of frustration if one is a scientist or programmer, for example, or one could be like Temple Grandin and combine knowledge of animals with knowledge of engineering to create efficient and humane slaughterhouses.
Art offers a lot more than just marketable skills. Humans are never going to be purely logical creatures, and we need to be in tune with our emotional side as well.
Art is a great outlet for emotions that allows someone to create rather than destroy. Instead of harming themselves or taking their feelings out on others, artists take it out on the canvas or scrawl it out on a blank page.
And if someone else sees the work, they might recognize the feeling in themselves and begin to work through it. Teaching kids art teaches them empathy, which is something that is missing in many people today. Creating art makes people more emotionally resilient.
Writing and photography have saved me from suicide. If I wasn’t able to express myself through stories and photos I would not have survived childhood.
I suffered through an abusive school system and a dysfunctional family, and learning to write allowed me to work through my issues. If I hadn’t learned to write stories and look for the small happy details, my mental health would have suffered, and I would have been unable to hold down a job.
Right now I am going to college full time (on scholarship, and I was accepted because of my creative writing skills), as well as writing on Odyssey and doing an internship. I would not have been able to do that without art.
An education system that only teaches kids how to read, write, and do math is an incomplete education system.
