Arts students learn to work well with others. The high level of responsiveness,
sensitivity to others, and coordinated interaction is very clear in a theater piece or a
string quartet. All members of an ensemble know that the success of the whole depends
on the productivity of each member. Age, sex, country of origin, or ethnic group doesn't
matter; the quality of the work does. This aspect of art training is mirrored in the recent
interest in cooperative learning in the classroom as an effective way for heterogeneous
groups of students to learn.
In this context it is interesting to note that educators who have studied schooling in
Japan, often cited as an example of the efficacy of rote learning, have suggested that the
most important skill Japanese children learn in school is how to work together for the
success of the group. This ability has allowed Japan to emerge as an economic power in
the world and is certainly a crucial attribute for a postmodern, internationalist culture
where the capacity to work together for common goals is a necessity.
Peer pressure is a powerful force in schools, often having more influence over how a
student behaves then any other group. It is often spoken of negatively but can work both
ways. For example, Asian students experience peer pressure to do well in school. Inner
city African-American students often experience the opposite. In schools for the arts,
peer pressure is focused around high achievement and seriousness of
purpose. The worst crime in a school for the arts is a lack of seriousness about the
work. Students who want to "be artists," as opposed to actually producing, are quickly
frozen out.
Students of the arts must develop their imagination to a high degree. One of the
primary tasks of the artist is to imagine new realities, new forms and new
interpretations; to make something where there was nothing. The unknown is,
paradoxically, familiar and exciting territory for young artists, an advantageous attitude
for the 21st century.
The study of the arts teaches students to be communicators of their thoughts,
feelings, and ideas. If the audience doesn't "get" the character of Macbeth, then the actor
isn't doing his job. Art students communicate, perform, and exhibit. They put
themselves and their ideas out in the world. They act.
It has been said that studying to be an artist is a failure to face the facts of stiff
competition for the few, low-paying jobs available. However, to fail to encourage young
people to pursue their highest aspirations is counter- intuitive and, finally,
counterproductive. The ambitious and visionary part of young people needs to be
developed and if, in the end, they do not pursue a career in the arts, they will have had
the experience of an education that, among other things, taught them all the skills they
need to follow any career path, and did so by taking their dreams seriously. And they
will never have to say, at 50, "if only I had..."
The writer Donald Murray suggested that, of all citizens, artists are the most capable of
engaging with the 21st century. He said we need to educate people who can "discover
meaning in confusion, pattern in chaos, instruction in failure, and vision in doubt ...
they have to believe while questioning and have faith that beauty and order exist in