Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Arts: The Surrey, Not the Fringe

1980; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 33; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3192408

2325-5161

Paul D. Houston,

Education and Technology Integration

Any school administrator who has attempted school reform in the 1970's knows the feeling of mixed emotions. On the one hand there are the double terrors of Scylla and Charbydis-of either being sucked under the whirlpool of conflicting pressures or dashed against the rocks of obstructionism. On the other hand, one faces the whimsy of falling through the looking glass with Alice and seeing things all upside down and backwards and finding that you have to keep running to stay at the same place. A case in point is the arts-ineducation movement. At a time when budgets are being cut, public confidence in schools is continuing to plummet, and the hue and cry is to go back to basics, one might question calling for increasing our commitment to the arts. However, one can support arts-in-education for some very sound and practical reasons without great risk by making a closer examination of the supposed enemy-the basics, by exposing some of the biases which hamper the arts, and by providing some pragmatic backing for the cause. Disposing of the is the easiest. The basics are usually considered to be the three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now one should have no difficulty dealing with proponents of the basics when it is obvious they can't even spell. After all, only one of the three is even an R word! Also, one must question what is so special about the number three. Why not add a fourth R: responsibility, or a fifth R: responsiveness, or a sixth R: reality? These additional R's at least have the decency to start with the right letter. The point I'm making is a one and that is that the so-called have never been the sole curriculum. Schools have always had a more diverse and rich curriculum than the three and always will. For educators to give in to the pressures at this point would be to abdicate all we know and should stand for. Another point concerning the basics is the increasingly documented fact that schools, in general, are doing a better job now in the basics than ever before. While this is heresy in some circles, let's look at the facts. A recent study by the National Assessment of Educational Programs found that over the last 30-50 years, there has been a long term gradual increase in average reading ability of students at each grade level. This is coupled with the fact that students at every grade level are younger today than they used to be. It would, therefore, be argued that schools today are in fact doing a better job of teaching the basics. It should also be noted that more children are staying in school longer. Thirty to forty years ago only about 30 percent of all students who could be in school were in school. Today that number is between 90 and 95 percent. Today's student body presents a far more diverse and striking challenge than did those of yesteryears. All of this is not to say that the basic subject areas are not important and do not need improvement. There is a crying need to make substantial improvement in teaching children how to function with language and numbers. but a simplistic turning to a past that never was is not a solution but a copout.