Taking into account recent races for the test scores, both teachers and students seem to forget what are the main goals of school education. Not only arts but also science, social studies, and some other subjects were ignored because of the influence of No Child Left Behind policy. School curricula change and develop, but arts have never been their valuable constituent. Children and their parents were told that arts are nice but not essential for high school education.
Scientific research shows that arts link everything modern parents demand from schools: academic performance, emotional development, and social engagement. Studying arts is connected to enhanced cognitive ability and critical thinking; it also motivates students to work in team and nurture self-confidence. These benefits are not taken into account by educators who refer to the shortage of hours for essential subjects, neither they are promoted by parents who do not organize family trips to a museum, exhibition, or performance. Art education is more inherent to families with a higher income, which can allow children to attend schools of arts or hire a private teacher.
As arts are not on curricula of most public schools yet, children learn music and performance in their free time. Parents who care about how their teenage kids spend leisure time, motivate them to take creative extracurriculars and put off the pressure of hours spent in the classrooms. To be frank, most of those teens enjoy their creative activity. If schools cannot provide some basics of arts, parents shall take over this responsibility. Family influence may be even stronger than teacher’s instruction, which means children will adore arts from the early age. Public schools are responsible for educating future generations no more than parents. Perhaps, the time has come to cooperate and prepare children to become citizens.