To protest the narrowing of curriculum to reading and math, a Maryland teacher organized the Big Draw — a whole morning of art and nothing but — at her suburban school.
At North Chevy Chase Elementary School yesterday, third-graders in Room 12 sketched ideas for Harry Potter and SpongeBob SquarePants postage stamps while sixth-graders down the hall drew architectural designs for a castle.
Educators from the National Portrait Gallery helped fourth-graders draw images of themselves, and third-graders pretended to be botanical illustrators by making detailed drawings of plants. For the 320 students toting sketch pads, charcoal pencils and erasers, the school’s Big Draw event meant a three-hour break from math, language arts and other classes and a chance to draw to their hearts’ content.
The third graders may have learned some science by drawing plants; the sixth graders may have learned something about math and medieval history by designing castles. But what’s so great about spending three hours drawing SpongeBob SquarePants?
Kevin Carey challenges the claim that art is “often” squeezed out. Only 16 percent of districts say they’ve cut time for art or music to make more time to teach reading and math, according to the Center for Education Policy report cited by the Post. These are places where students struggle with reading and math, not upper-middle-class schools like North Chevy Chase, where reading and math scores are very high. Carey writes:
There are only so many hours in the school day. Priorities need to be set and choices must be made. The 16% of districts that cut art in favor of reading and math didn’t necessarily make a bad choice, unless you think that all districts had, pre-NCLB, miraculously arrived at the precise optimal mix of subjects and time. Reducing time for art in order to ensure that elementary school student can read might be exactly the kind of hard decision those students need.
Ken DeRosa, who also read the CEP report, observes that art and music haven’t been cut to nothing.
For those schools (16%) that cut time, the pre-NCLB time spent on art and music instruction was 154 minutes a week. The post-NCLB time was 100 minutes.
My elementary school had no formal art or music classes till third or fourth grade, and then we spent about 90 minutes a week on both. I enjoyed music but found art boring. I can draw to my heart’s content very quickly.
I’d like to see schools with lots of disadvantaged children extend their days so kids can spend the time they need on reading, math, history and science and have time for music, art, drama, sports, etc. But this has nothing to do with schools like North Chevy Chase, which could teach art every day and still beat the state average on the exams.
Regardless of whether schools *have* cut back on these things, a lot of the people I encounter *think* they have. Many parents are concerned that the local schools don’t spend much time on specials, and the lower school admissions officer at the school where I work touts our extensive specials program to prospective parents (apparently it is one of the most appealing elements of our curriculum).
I do think substance is more important than people’s perceptions, but I also think that one of the salutary effects of school competition is that schools have to think about how to appeal to families, and how to position themselves in the market. So if people have this *perception* that there’s not enough art, schools do have to engage with that perception in some way, and insofar as they do so (especially traditional public schools, which tend to be less responsive to the idea of competition and marketing than charters or privates), I think that’s a good thing. Again, the substance is *more* important, but if schools are consciously appealing to community priorities rather than just taking it for granted that they get to educate everyone, that’s a good thing.
substance is importance … isn’t this actually the “big draw attention” in reality. A teacher worth one’s salt is incorporating those items in the curriculum.
I’d like to see schools with lots of disadvantaged children extend their days
This is like Boxer in Animal Farm: I will work harder! But if my memory serves, he ends up overstraining himself, collapsing, and being carted off to be made into glue.
Just like the communism Animal Farm was mocking, public education cannot be fixed by working longer or harder. The system itself must be changed to a true free-market (something that hasn’t been done anywehre yet), or at best we will only see minor and temporary improvements, that quickly revert back to the status quo.
The Education Politburo didn’t get the 1989 Berlin Wall memo.
> The system itself must be changed to a true free-market (something that hasn’t been done anywehre yet),
It has, you just have to know where to look for it: http://tinyurl.com/ygyjfx
allen,
It has, you just have to know where to look for it
Thanks for the link. Interesting article.
I should have been clearer: by free market, I mean where the government pays a set amount, say half what we are spending now, and lets the parents spend it on education however they wish (within reason), setting their own standards for how they want their children educated. In this case, it wouldn’t take long for the schools to start delivering a serious product the parents want. Much like a grocery store, where everyone starts with the same cash.
The schools in the link you provided are not paid for by the government at all…In each location, the private schools are run largely by proprietors, with very few receiving outside philanthropic support and none receiving state funding and they also are not in the United States, so it’s tough to know how the data correlates.
Interesting stuff, though.
Even if we still have arts classes, they are definitely being marginalized, as are other types of electives. In our high school, we are gearing up for another round of testing. In my one trimester Advanced Drama class, we will have 13-15 days where at least one group of students will be gone doing one type of testing or another. The school is judged on the results of those tests, so the disruption of a class that isn’t part of the state testing program is of very low priority. I’m trying to teach a 12 week drama class in about 10 weeks.