It's been a crazy week, with the 'day job,' but before it got all crazy, I got some cool news.THIS appeared in my hometown paper, the Kewanee Star Courier.
I stand by it. I stand by my art teacher. And the best part would be the feedback I've gotten on Facebook and such regarding the article. Sounds like there are alot of us that stand by our art teachers.
Here's the crummy part. Art is elective. You know, it's the catch-all for those little weirdos that most likely won't amount to much. They're not so good at English or Math or Civics class. Who cares, really? I mean, you can't test paintbrush-wielding to get the school's marks up for No Child Left Behind, right? And, you'll never make anything of yourself wielding a brush anyway. Those creative gigs, meh. Real work is in accounting...or engineering...or whatever it is that leads people to get an MBA (I'm talking about you, Booker ;) ). So yeah, cut it. It's not worth anything. It's not teaching anything. It's just taking up resources, money and time that could be spent on scoring high on tests.
Uh, yeah. Here's what art gives us, even the least deft of the paintbrush-wielders. Art gives us creativity. Art helps us to think 'outside of the box.' Corporate-types love that phrase, right? That and synergy...and efforting. God, I hate that term. Anyway, you can't think outside of the box if all you've been taught is how to stay in the lines. Accountants have to come up with solutions...that requires creativity. Engineers have to come up with solutions and make diagrams and thoughts real. Not only is that creativity, but envisioning. And the MBA's? I don't know, but I'll sell them my art for their offices, if they know what they like, right? (HINT HINT).
And even better than deft-paintbrush-wielding skills, here's what I learned in art: I learned people management. I learned time management. I learned leadership and delegating. I learned strategizing. I learned negotiating. I learned how to make something out of nothing, be satisfied with my work, and then do it all over again. And I learned all of that from one teacher who trusted me to get my job done. I learned what it meant to do my job without micromanaging and to be trusted to accomplish that. That's a feeling many professionals never ever feel, let alone a high school student taking confidence from it.
Sure, I learned artistic principles. I learned about perspective, two-point, one-point (we touched on 3-point but only briefly, I still got it). In fact, 15 years later, and about 3 weeks ago, I recited and explained the concept of perspective and vanishing points and horizon lines to a coworker that...comes from a more word-based background than I do. I learned how to frame and compose a shot. That knowledge, something I picked up my freshman year in high school, has carried my through college and I use it every day in my professional career (read: my day job). I know if I just just a slight step this way, a smidge that way; my shot composition just improved tenfold. And I learned that so long ago, I do it instinctively now. Thank you Mrs. Blake.
There are alot of jobs in this world that go unnoticed. Jobs you encounter every day without really realizing that someone had to set out to learn it, so that you could enjoy the fruits of that work. My day job is one of them. People love to watch video, but few stop to think there was actually a person behind that lens. And that person not only learned the technical information required to operate the equipment (Math! Science!) but had to have an eye for it. An artistic eye. And that eye was nurtured by someone, probably an art teacher.
Many people preach the woes of this country. We're the best in the world!...Oh, wait, this other country is poised to beat us at ____. Wail! Wail! 50 years ago, a working section of our country set out to do what no other country had done before, and what no other country has (to date) accomplished since: Put a man on the moon. There was alot that went into that. They were creating technology out of thin air. There were designs made, schematics, concepts, that were then created into something, that was then put through tests, then put into use and then, next thing we knew, we were walking and talking on the moon (and playing golf). To make something out of nothing, to create an entire science with practically no precedent (like space suits and helmets), took creativity. They weren't all eggheads, they were artists. And we actually sent, probably without knowing it, an artist to the moon. Alan Bean. And with some pretty deft paintbrush-wielding, we get to experience what he felt and saw and his moment on another world. Art did that. Art and Science.
Budget cuts blah blah blah. You know what will get us ahead and keep us there? Creative thinking. Go hug an art teacher. For all you know, she may have taught thousands of kids in a nearly 4 decade career (and, as in the case of my teacher, will continue to do so part time) and instilled in us a creativity that's priceless and an outlook on the world that will carry us through life, and skills we never knew we'd use so much.
Thank you, Mrs. Blake, from your All-Stars everywhere.
PS And thank you Dave Clarke for the excellent write-up! K-e-w-a-n-EE!! :)
