Mae Jemison’s 2002 TED talk on teaching the arts and sciences together has more to do with valuing them equally than with “teaching them together”, but her point is very valid. Both disciplines rely on creativity, intuitive thinking, analysis, and logic in varying degrees. Both utilize deconstructive and constructive approaches. Both attempt to share an understanding of the universe.
Jemison’s talk called to mind an anecdote my division head once shared. He relayed that one of his former students who later attended and graduated from MIT and ultimately regretted the fact that he did not get a liberal arts education. This former student felt that because he had not cultivated his knowledge of a diverse array of disciplines that he had stunted his own creative, innovative, and problem-solving abilities.
Hearing this story made me wonder about all of the students across the country who have attended/are attending schools where fine and performing arts have been cut or drastically reduced from the curriculum. It also reinforces the ideas behind Ken Robinson’s TED talk on how schools kill creativity. We are robbing our students of a rich and productive future if we are not developing the whole child.
I am also grateful to be at a school that values the arts as well as the sciences. This is mission-driven and reflected in our curriculum, of course, but it is also our cultural expectation. Given our size, we expect our students to participate in extra-curricular activities that are scholarly, athletic, and artistic. The students who are leaders in our school are dancers who edit the newspaper, painters who will be valedictorian, guitar players who make touchdowns and participate in Mu Alpha Theta. Moreover, I think that these students are seeking out such diversity of experience from their future colleges.
That said, I know there is room for improvement to strike the kind of balance Jemison describes.
Stephanie, great thoughts! I agree, schools and in some cases districts that cut arts programs are robbing students of so much, but also robbing ourselves in the process. They are the future for us, they will become what we make of it today. We have to speak louder to ensure they get these experiences to enhance their problem solving abilities. I always valued the arts, but Jemison opened my eyes to a broader view of the arts' connection to science and sparked my interest to learn/know more. Liz
ReplyDeleteLiz, thank you for responding. Rereading my post and your response, I started thinking about the history of English literature and all of the movements and reactionary swings it has seen over the ages. The periods that I enjoy most--as a reader and as a teacher-- are the ones that have valued the most diverse range of ideas and influences: the Renaissance, the Romantic age, and Modernism. The ideal Renaissance man had a variety of interests (astronomy and painting) and had a broad base of learning. The Romantics rejected the narrow view of the neoclassical period that valued reason and order as the highest of human capabilities; the Romantics, instead, celebrated the imagination, the body, and nature. William Carlos Williams was both physician and poet, working with science and art daily. These three eras showed advancements in all aspects of culture and society: commerce, medicine, human rights, equality, etc. We need to be producing more renaissance men and women in our schools.
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