Posted on 09/03/2007 3:34:05 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...One justification for keeping the arts has now become almost a mantra for parents, arts teachers, and even politicians: arts make you smarter. The notion that arts classes improve children's scores on the SAT, the MCAS, and other tests is practically gospel among arts-advocacy groups. A Gallup poll last year found that 80 percent of Americans believed that learning a musical instrument would improve math and science skills.
But that claim turns out to be unfounded. It's true that students involved in the arts do better in school and on their SATs than those who are not involved. However, correlation isn't causation, and an analysis we did several years ago showed no evidence that arts training actually causes scores to rise...
...It is well established that intelligence and thinking ability are far more complex than what we choose to measure on standardized tests. The high-stakes exams we use in our schools, almost exclusively focused on verbal and quantitative skills, reward children who have a knack for language and math and who can absorb and regurgitate information. They reveal little about a student's intellectual depth or desire to learn, and are poor predictors of eventual success and satisfaction in life.
...As schools increasingly shape their classes to produce high test scores, many life skills not measured by tests just don't get taught....
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
One interesting argument is that the arts teach skills not easily expressedin the SAT: "...Such skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today's standardized tests.
Actually, IQ as measured by the ACT and SAT do augur for success in life. Studies down within same families show a significant correlation between IQ and income. Indeed, a number of studies have shown there is a predictable economic difference between countrys with high vs. low average IQs.
“A Gallup poll last year found that 80 percent of Americans believed that learning a musical instrument would improve math and science skills”
being tall improves your basketball game
“A Gallup poll last year found that 80 percent of Americans believed that learning a musical instrument would improve math and science skills”
having the money for a ticket will get you in more theaters than waiting and trying to sneak in the exit door..etc;..etc;
what do these pollsters smoke to come up with their crap
Arts are another excuse for dumbing down our youth. Look how many kiddies today are pursuing music and art degrees rather than science and math.
Art should be an elective and only one course per semester.
These tests don't measure IQ. They are a mixed measure of intelligence and learning, as well as, to some extent under the way the test is administered now, practice effect.
The companies who develop and administer these tests used to obfuscate the reality of these tests by calling them "achievement tests", and claiming that they measured innate ability. Which, of course is crap - you may have a great deal of innate ability, but have been raised by an Amazonian rain forest tribe, and never seen the inside of a school. Under those circumstances, you would score very poorly on an "achievement test".
A most helpful table is at the end with correlations of SAT, ACT and WAICS.
Unfortunately, there’s too much intellectual falseness going on in art these days. However, cutting off the spigot of talented artists in training isn’t going to improve the U.S. economy one whit.
If high marks on these test results in one being handed the keys to success (entrance into a good college)of course a group with high marks should have a higher rates of success in life.
I am old enough that there were no arts courses in my high school except one/semester. I was allowed to take it. My husband, who also went to school when there was only a single course available, was not allowed by his family to take it, as it was considered superfluous.
My parents told me they would not pay for an art education. I qualified in my sophmore year for the College of Art at the University of Illinois on portfolio review. My parents insisted I take art education courses, as well.
Finally, after taking time off to work, get married and have a child, I went back to school on my own. My advisor told me in 1966 that I would hate being buried in the education system, where art was not funded and that, based on my work and my history, I was one of the 5% of all art students who could make it as a career. He was right and today I make my living hand manufacturing a fiber item I developed and have been marketing for 22 years.
My husband dropped out of college and while working in a factory, learned to silver solder. In college, he had not been able to take professional art courses because it was not his declared major. Non-major courses had no real critique and did not take the students seriously. On his own, he became an accomplished silversmith and went on to pioneer techniques in reactive metals and to do some wonderful work in forged iron. He did this work successfully for 20 years.
The only reason he is not working as an artist/craftsman today is that the passage of the AMT killed the tax rule that allowed most galleries to exist. These were run by the wives of high earners who used the losses as a tax write-off. Prior to the entire rolling of Bush I by the donk Congress, we were making a nice middle class income off jewlery production and marketing. Combined with a fashion sea change when Clinton took office and an increase in the cost of marketing, much of the Second American Craft Movement disappeared in the early to mid 1990s.
We still enjoy galleries and craft fairs and the quality of most of the work is not as innovative as it was in the seventies through the nineties. Even with loads of art and craft education, including entire curricula devoted to production crafts as a business, most of the accomplished work seems to be by older people who did not have all this access and encouragement.
I strongly believe that art in innate. Technique can be taught, of course, but the sheer will to produce is in some of us from birth and will be expressed even if if it is forbidden. I am not convinced the opposite is true.
This is also an entreprenuerial professional business. While a few colleges have some business courses tacked on to the production crafts curriculum, it has little relationship to the realities of limited production hand manufacturing or the marketing system as it presently exists in galleries and trade shows. To be successful takes a combination of business and marketing savvy along with creativity, technical accomplishment and the ability to source materials, devise production systems and meet production deadlines consistently and profitably. An MBA once told me that someone with his degree could run any business, but that did not mean they could start one.
I do not see that the prevalence of art instruction has produced more work or better work. I wonder if even 5% still graduate to become working professionals. I think it is more like 2% today.
“cutting off the spigot of talented artists in training isn’t going to improve the U.S. economy one whit.”
Perhaps. But cutting off the flow of the taxpayers’ money now being wasted on all that “intellectual falseness” won’t hurt the economy, either. It’s not a matter of censorship — if an ‘artist’ wants to mock Christianity, by all means go for it. But why should the citizenry be forced to subsidize his ‘statement’?
I do not see that the prevalence of art instruction has produced more work or better work.
Look around at products you see and/or buy everyday. Design has become a major value-added for a lot of products. That’s design in labeling, marketing, packaging and the product itself. That design is a product of folks who went to art school.
The ancient Greeks were all wrong, of course. They believed that men should be skilled in science, art, and physical strength. What a crock.
/sarcasm
When children are taught to pursue simpleton courses in arts and crafts they miss the challenge of accomplishment of mastering a difficult effort they are not attuned to.
Artistic talent if latent does not need to be enhanced by education in school.
Let the budding musicians and artists drop out of education and pursue their dream elsewhere. Too many kids today can not even handle simple mathematics yet can play an instrument and do videos on you tube from their parents basement.
Want to become another barbarian nation like Iran or China? There’s one way to do it. Our next generation of professional conductors, opera singers, and instrumentalists for orchestras won’t be coming out of high school ready to step into the pit, and a single class a semester isn’t remotely enough to train up future professionals.
I considered going to college as a music major (flute - performance) but realized I wasn’t remotely the caliber musician to do so, nor was I willing to put in the sort of work to become one. Add that on to the fact I was too painfully shy to consider anything where I might actually be heard (a jazz band or soloist rather than an orchestra)...
Russia is rearming, China is working on expanding her arsenal and the Islamo-fascists are spreading around the globe. Meanwhile our kiddies prepare to star on American Idol and make videos for your tube and my space. Guess we'll look good working in the barbarians fields and painting pictures at night in our mud huts. We will simply agree to disagree on the importance of arts and crafts.
Are you saying we should become a militarized nation? A new Sparta?
Not to that extreme but simply bring back the things which make our young men different from our young women.
Push for competition, challenges and rewards for young people who really try to excel.
Everyone can not be a winner, just as everyone can not be a Marine.
That’s good to hear, since I have seen the movie 300 and would refuse to wear a red speedo and cape.
The fact of the matter is, we need warriors, we need artists, and we need craftsmen, and laborers etc. etc.
However, for those who have the stuff, there are extremely high paying jobs that involve “art” and the arts.
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