Educating Your Children in the Arts

Educating your children in the arts has become more and more a responsibility for parents. While school budgets for the arts continue to be whittled away to provide funding for "the basics" sometimes the most basic part of human education, discovery of and exposure to the arts gets lost in the whittling process. The result unhappily can be a reduction in your child's education in the arts. Here are some suggestions for how parents can step up and help to educate their children in the arts.

Even though school budget dollars are almost universally down when it comes to locally funding the arts, schools remain a major assistant in every parent's effort to educate their children in the arts. So parents need to work whenever possible alongside of school administrators and committees to hold on to any and all parts of local arts instruction programs as possible. Without strong parental advocate groups it can become way too easy for arts instruction to hit the bottom of the budget priority list. Keeping even a skeleton arts program in your school system may depend on you and other parents sticking to their guns and teaching the teachers about the importance of art in the overall learning process of children.

Beyond academic programs that center on the arts, you will also want to give full support to any and all extra curricular art programs, clubs ,organizations and field trips that provide opportunities for kids to sample the rich variety of creative possibilities that are part of the world beyond the classroom.

Well organized parent groups can make a major pro-arts contribution to their local school system by developing and working to maintain strong after school enrichment programs rich in the arts. Surveying the arts skills and abilities of local and regional talent, it may be possible to piece together weekly programs that can introduce young people to drawing, sculpting, poetry, screen writing, music, weaving, drama and a host of other artistic pursuits. Your program doesn't need to polished, it just needs to be there. You may be surprised at the number of local artisans that you can flush out by putting out the call. Artists for the most part can be counted on to love the arts and to understand the seriousness of school budget losses in art education. You will find help but you have to be ready to look, organize and publicize your after school arts enrichment program .

Regardless of plummeting arts opportunities in local schools you are perfectly capable of encouraging the arts in your own home. Through your personal example, television, on line offerings, commercially offered programs, private lessons and the rental or acquisition of arts enhancing materials like instruments, ballet slippers, play books, arts material, you can open doors to the arts for your whole family

When summer or vacations roll around don't forget to select some programs, workshops or camps for your kids that offer arts along with popular sports programs.

One has to wonder what a very different nation we would be if our emphasis in developing our children outside of academics was mildly skewed towards the arts instead of hugely skewed towards sports. Skewing it turns out is in the hands of parents. You really do get to choose and you can make a difference in educating your children in the arts.

Sources:

www.keepartsinschools.org

www.specialprograms.tisch,nyu.edu/page/hsstudents