Educational Media Reviews Online

This video examines and reports on the current state of arts education and the arts in America's public school systems. According to the video, the arts represent 6% of America's gross national product; yet in this day and age of decreasing school budgets, the arts are constantly being deleted and phased out of the public school system. A variety of experts, including Judith Burton (Chair, Arts and Humanities at Columbia University), Jeffrey Patchen (President, Children's Museum of Indianapolis), and Mary Oyer (retired music teacher), among others, discuss the many attributes that arts education brings to the development and maturity of the human species. Among some comments made: the arts encourage children to be more innovative and open in their thinking; brain research has found that different subneural connections are made in the brain when children are exposed to the arts; children who have arts education outperform those who do not in both verbal and math skills; in the arts, there is no right or wrong, and there are plenty of chances to retry and redo things over and over, this is not possible in other disciplines; and that the arts teach tolerance, discipline, and respect for others, skills that cannot be learn from lessons, quizes, or classrooms.

This video is highly recommended for public school and state education boards, elementary and secondary school teachers, and both advocates and detractors of arts education in the public school system. It is a strong testimony to the importance of the arts in the public and private school educational system, and indeed to our society in general. We are currently raising a culture-poor generation, which will not support the arts in the next 20 to 30 years, because they were never exposed to it during their developmental years, and thus they have no appreciation for it. How will our symphony orchestras and art galleries survive without the next generation's financial and cultural support?

Highly recommended