I’m thinking about doing my class papers on the importance of the arts in schools. I’ve found some interesting feeds written by other music teachers who have had really neat experiences in the classroom, so I’m hoping they can give me some inspiration to write. My only hesitation is that I don’t know how much of a controversy over the arts in schools is, especially here in Indiana. If there’s no controversy, is it still worth writing about? Is it still a “cause”? Granted, after seeing programs cut in schools with lower funding across the nation, maybe it is a cause–one that I can bring to some people’s attention who might not have thought about it before.
Obviously, this is an idea close to my heart—it’s my job and what I love doing. In elementary school you’ve got almost all the kids happy to come to music class. After a meeting with colleagues last week, we were discussing what the ultimate goals of elementary music are. There are the fundamental musical ideas that we are supposed to teach, like singing on pitch, recognizing certain note values and note names on a staff, etc. But we all came to the agreement that our job is to instill a love a music in children—help them want to listen to many different kinds of music and enjoy singing. I only see the kids once a week, so that’s a good primary objective. We teach as much as we can of the fundamentals, but hope that those will be cemented by our counterparts in middle school and high school who get to see the kids every day for semesters at a time.
Maybe someone out there has some ideas about the direction I could take this…
Arts in the schools may not be a controversy now, but with property tax reform and schools getting their funding from property tax, it may become an issue in the future. It seems as if funding for the arts is always the first to go. It might be good to have your arguements ready…just in case.
Comment by Theresa — January 23, 2008 @ 1:47 pm