Dedd Pixel

The New York Times reported on  a study conducted on student visitors to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas that showed a strong correlation between exposure to the arts and enhanced critical thinking skills, higher levels of social tolerance and greater historical empathy.  This effect was stronger for students from poorer backgrounds who may have not had prior opportunities to view and think about art.  In light of this study, it seem especially demoralizing that arts programs are being cut in preference of a STEM-only curriculum when an integrated approach may be most effective at cultivating a young mind.

Education has been shoved into a pigeon-hole of teaching to the standardized tests and may be doing our teachers, our students, and this country’s future a major disservice.  The problems our children will have to solve, such as over-population and climate change, require creative thinking because there is no clear-cut answer.  Twelve years of training that the world’s problems can be boiled down to a single, easily arrived at letter on a multiple choice test is not the most effective way to prepare kids for the future, even if it’s easiest for us to judge.