Nelson Mandela, a South African ex-president, stated: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Mandela accomplished many things, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela´s most impressive achievements were the introduction of education, housing, and the development in economy in order to improve the living standards of people. Nelson Mandela noticed that education was the key to success and development. Nowadays, education is an essential factor in people´s lives; however, education has been presented to us in a way in which not everyone can relate to, for not everyone learns in the same way. The human brain is divided into two sides, which describes a person´s thinking process. Most people tend to stick to one of the sides; nevertheless, some people tend to adapt to both of them. Practically, most of the schools tend to favor left-brain thinkers while excluding right-brain thinkers. Left-brained thinkers focus on logical thinking, analysis and accuracy while right-brained thinkers focus on aesthetics, feeling and creativity. Besides having a specific way of thinking, people tend to have a specific way of learning. There are 7 styles of learning, which are visual, solitary, social, logical, physical, verbal and aural. Each learning style is compatible with one of the two thinking processes. According to Lynne Munson, president and executive director of Common Core, “ I define 21st Century learning as 20th (or even 19th!) Century learning but with better tools…But being able to Google is no substitute for understanding. They (students) need to be able to enjoy man´s greatest artistic and scientific achievements and to speak a language besides their mother tongue.” Education is something vital, which can help us innovate and create new ideas that can help us change the world. But how can we achieve this? How can we make everyone learn in a way that can satisfy his or her needs? Education can be improved by applying art education in schools. “Art education refers to learning, instruction and programming based upon the visual and tangible arts. Art education includes performing arts like dance, music, theater, and visual arts like drawing, painting, sculpture, and design works” (“Art Education Law & Legal Definition”, 2017). Although, in many schools, arts have been left aside, we strongly believe that the encouragement to develop the creativity of the students by implementing art education will noticeably improve their performance in other areas of study, and, as a long-term effect, it will help to develop a more cultured and entrepreneurial society that will have a higher self-esteem and will be able to make the world a better place.
To start off, having an artistic education will improve a person´s talent in any of the eight art forms. According to Fran Smith, at Corbett Elementary School, in Tucson, Arizona they practice their musical talents every day, whether they are operas, or violin, or a trio form a Tucson Symphony Orchestra, this helps them develop their rhythm patterns as well as their literacy connections (2009). A talent is something a person is born with, and has to develop through out his or her life in order to perfect it. If someone does not practice his or her talent, one may loose it. Corbett Elementary School plays a role in Tucson´s Unified School District, which is part of the project OMA (opening Minds Through the Arts), which is supposed to help the learning and neurological development of children. These types of schools are based upon nurturing the student´s artistic talents. At first, teachers were worried about wasting so much time on music or dance, however it is so relevant that they would never give it up, according to Principal Joyce Dillon. “OMA schools significantly outscored their counterparts in reading, math, and writing” (Smith, 2009). Not only is it necessary to develop one´s talent, but also it is essential to practice arts. According to David J. Skorton, president of Cornell University: “The arts and humanities play a virtual role in the educational development of students. They keep and convey our cultural heritage while opening us to other societies and civilizations around the globe” (2009). Arts are a way of communication with something other than words. It allows people to express themselves, for example, “Music is a communicator, a transducer of emotion, a stimulator of understanding” (Skorton, 2009). If everyone were able to express him or herself and understand each other as people do with arts, there would be no miscommunication.
People are born with certain talents, but people can have skills too. A skill is the ability to do something better than the average, and it is a learned capacity that can be developed through the arts. For example, at the Boston Arts Academy, a public American school, students learn math, science, and the humanities thanks to the arts. What could singing lessons possibly have to do with science class? According to Grace Rubenstein, “training for the arts is training for everything important” (2006). Linda Nathan, the headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, pointed out “there´s a deep-seated belief here that art allows young people to develop a creative and entrepreneurial understanding of the world.” For her, kids learn that there are many possible answers. The results of this academy are extraordinary even though most of the academy students come from low-income families and drug-impacted neighbourhoods, and student’s admissions are academically blind. 97% of the students go to college, 92% of the academy´s sophomores passed the state´s English test, 80% passed the math test, compared to 73% and 67% of Boston students overall. According to Anne Clark, a teacher of the school, art make students feel good about them, so they can develop new skills because they are hungry for new things. For her, “Art could make you more perfect. In fact, the purpose of art is to inspire you in becoming.” In other words, art causes you to develop new skills. According to theatre major Michael Cognata, “ The things we learn in theatre could be good for theatre, but they´re also good for other areas of life.” As a consequence of being responsible during work hours for the play, he became responsible in more aspects of his life. According to Elena Aguilar (2012), Art education brings different societies together because it is a universal language, it helps us solve different kinds of problems, it helps us remember things and it provides people other ways of expressing their thoughts.
To carry on, arts are very important because they help us relax and express ourselves while we enjoy out creative capacity. People may argue that art is simply a manifestation of recreational time in which a person does something productive, but at the end there is nothing that comes out of it. However, implementing art education has several long-term effects that can improve a person’s life and alter in a positive way a person’s personality. “Art is about fitting things together: words, images, objects, processes, thoughts, historical epochs” (Schnapp, 2009). Art is not only meant to be ‘something nice to do’ but also, it should be something to teach habits, a way of living, and a way “to fit together” (Schnapp, 2009). Masters of the Renaissance such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, and Michael Angelo, were all artists, whom through their arts found the long term effects, which gave them intelligence, the capacity to understand, and cleverness, which helped them develop and innovate all the creations they contributed this world with. A person would develop the ability to express oneself better, like Skorton did through music, he said it was his communicator (2009), which would improve a person’s self esteem, for he or she will not be afraid to present his or her point of view. Deleting art from a schools curriculum would be counterproductive. Arts are essential; they develop reading, writing and arithmetic (Schnapp, 2009). If someone were to develop these characteristics, and had a high self esteem, that person would become a leader. If we all had leading characteristics, the world would be a better place.
To sum up, implementing artistic education in schools will help students to develop their talents, to create new skills and to experience the long-term effects art provides to human beings. Clear examples of this are the students of the Corbett Elementary School, the students of the Boston Arts Academy and the famous artists of the Renaissance. If arts were encouraged in schools, people would learn to think with their whole body, rather than using it as a transport for their brain. People would be creative innovators that would come up with solutions for problems we cannot begin to imagine. the world would be a better place for our future generations.