Tony Mazzocchi's letter

http://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/mazzocchi-s-o-maplewood-boe-music-arts-education-not-luxury/

Thanks, Tom, for posting this critical item. It is a critical component of our schools and seems to be almost lost in our academic achievement discussions.

The arts are considered fluff by too many, whereas one could argue that they actually teach more than other subjects, because it brings other subjects together in a meaningful way. The other courses are "how" and the arts tell us "why."

Tom_Reingold said:
The arts are considered fluff by too many, whereas one could argue that they actually teach more than other subjects, because it brings other subjects together in a meaningful way. The other courses are "how" and the arts tell us "why."

Can you back this up with measurable data?

http://www.nafme.org/take-action/what-to-know/all-research/

Lots of data.

I agree with what he says here. Just wondering - is this different than the letter he wrote a year or so ago or is it just making the rounds again?

It has Monday's date on it, for whatever that's worth.

Can't argue with Tony about creativity in music and the arts. That is rock solid.

I would argue that it is not the only venue for enhancing creativity. One should look at what kids do in robotics, coding and electronics, in maker spaces around the country. There is also a lot of stats that back up the notion that kids who can build things, create things, work in teams to do that are also going to see improvements in educational achievement.

I do disagree with Tony on what the future might bring. The technology curve he speaks to is -- willing to bet a lot of money here - not going to go in reverse or even slow down. It is highly likely that increasing sophistication of software and robotics and the Internet and medical research will combine to abolish many more jobs but make a lot of new ones; it certainly won't hurt to be adept at coding, understanding how to integrate this tech into daily life -- that will happen and it is really inevitable.

Cars will drive themselves in our children's lifetimes, perhaps by the time today's high school kids are in their 30s the vast majority of cars on the road will be autonomous, leading to big changes in that industry.

Home robots will become inevitable as well and countries like Japan will lead the way in making them useful and not abhorrent. This is just the beginning of a very long march toward the integration of intelligent machines, perhaps mobile and dexterous, into our daily lives. We have seen this happen in two tech fields already -- the Internet and its vast trove of info and apps, and mobile devices that allow for continuous interaction -- and both of these were based on an earlier tech breakthrough, computers. Whether one likes this or not is largely irrelevant; it has happened and we cannot really imagine life without these technologies.

Synthetic biology is just beginning its relentless march to supplant a lot of older biological procedures and science -- the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana is building a new medical school that is 100% engineering based. The intersection of Synthetic Biology, Coding, 3-D printing and Stem Cell research will in time completely remake medicine. We hope to initiate here at CHS some opportunities in Synthetic Biology. (see www.iGEM.org -- we are registering as an iGEM lab.)

Might add that at least for now, more resources are delivered to music and art than to technology (and by "technology" I mean the courses that teach tech like coding and robotics and electronics, not simply using Chrome books to search the web) in this District. I fully support more funding for music and art -- you can see what it does for kids. It would help to get some funding for tech as that can shape lives and lead to creative thinking on the part of many students as well.

I run the robotics club and one can see kids get as excited about that as others do about singing or playing the violin or being in an orchestra.

http://www.theonion.com/article/struggling-high-school-cuts-footballnah-just-kiddi-17728

BROWNSVILLE, PA—Superintendent David Geyer announced Tuesday that due to the high cost of new equipment, regular field maintenance, and rising coaches' salaries, Brownsville High would be forced to shut down its footba—ha, yeah right, the arts program is definitely getting the ax. "I've already informed Coach Mackenzie that recent budget concerns have left us with no other choice but to…okay, all kidding aside, the entire music faculty is fired, effective immediately," Geyer said. "But the arts remain vital to a good education, and if the economy improves, aw, who am I trying to fool? Those programs are gone for good." Geyer then attempted to commend the school's art students for all their hard work, but couldn't keep himself from cracking up.

But don't forget that the killer apps for today's modern consumer technology are music, photography and video; and they're delivered successfully thanks to a healthy dose of great graphic and industrial design. All of which come right out of your music and arts programs.

xavier67 said:

Tom_Reingold said:
The arts are considered fluff by too many, whereas one could argue that they actually teach more than other subjects, because it brings other subjects together in a meaningful way. The other courses are "how" and the arts tell us "why."

Can you back this up with measurable data? " src="//static.wwstf.com/common/plugins/redactor/emoticons/1.0/images/5.gif" unselectable="on">

Yep, there's a ton of it!! This is a good place to start:

http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Key-Topics/Arts-Education/critical-evidence.pdf

Here are a few key paragraphs:

• One of the most common approaches to teaching reading
is to have a teacher read a story to students. The use of drama
in the classroom can provide a beneficial supplemental approach.
A recent study found that the development of literacy skills among
pre-kindergarteners was fostered when the children were allowed
to act out their favorite stories. Dramatic play also helped motivate
them to learn.

• When students had an opportunity to engage in a dramatic enactment
of a story, their overall understanding of the story improved.
Researchers in this study found that story comprehension effects
were greatest for first graders who were reading below grade level.

• An analysis conducted of multiple studies confirms the finding
that students who take music classes in high school are more likely
to score higher on standardized mathematics tests such as the SAT.
One explanation is musical training in rhythm emphasizes proportion,
patterns and ratios expressed as mathematical relations.

• Students consistently involved in orchestra or band during their
middle and high school years performed better in math at grade
12. The results were even more pronounced when comparing
students from low-income families. Those who were involved
in orchestra or band were more than twice as likely to perform
at the highest levels in math as their peers who were not involved
in music.

• Students at risk of not successfully completing their high school
educations cite their participation in the arts as reasons for staying
in school. Factors related to the arts that positively affected the
motivation of these students included a supportive environment
that promotes constructive acceptance of criticism and one where
it is safe to take risks.

• An ethnographic study of seventh grade boys in special education
revealed use of the visual arts helped them become more sophisticated,
less reluctant readers. Described as learning disabled, the boys
were encouraged to use visual forms of expression to convey their
understanding of reading assignments. After a nine-week course
of “visualization training,” they also took a more active role in reading
and began to interpret text rather than passively reading it.

We can always learn about the world around us, but the arts help us interpret the world around us. And as we look back at history it's the paintings, the sculptures, the plays, the novels, the music, the photography, the films and TV shows that help us understand, not just what historically occurred in each era, but how it felt to be within that era. What would the Elizabethan age be without Shakespeare, the Depression without Hopper and Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie, the 60s without Andy Warhol, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the 70s without Scorsese, Mike Nichols, the 80s without Basquiat, Duran Duran and Brett Easton Ellis or John Hughes, etc.

Any other examples?

Also, the arts inspire us to imagine and create. Would we have cellphones, Facetime and touchscreens without Star Trek?

On the last question...yes, we would have had cellphones, Facebook and touchscreens with or without the Stars Wars movies. We had radio and TV to project the arts but also to project the news. The underlying sciences of wireless were driven by a myriad of science and engineering researchers who may or may not have been motivated by the arts. Certainly Marconi was not all that much into the arts while others may have been.

The arts have played a huge role in history as has science and tech. They BOTH rely on creative skills and it is very hard to definitively tease out which works, do both work, or are creative people drawn to both or something else. The research suggests that both broad disciplines encourage creativity and I for one do not claim that the arts gave rise to tech or science any more than science gave rise to many aspects of the arts. There are texts that suggest a deep intertwining of the two -- was Picasso motivated by the works of Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Bohr and the legion of scientists at the time dealing with the advent of quantum theory and relativity? That massive overturning of the world of science, from the certainty of Newton to the uncertainty principle and the warping of space-time. it can be argued, helped push art in a different direction.

If one goes further back in history, the recluses like Kepler in astronomy perhaps gave rise to a whole slew of artistic interpretations of our place in the universe. Without the lonely and eccentric astronomers who night after night compiled data -- handwritten with quill pens on crappy "paper" -- perhaps Jules Verne and HG Wells might not have penned their impressive and influential science fiction novels. Did art inspire the work of the Nazis in WWII with their rockets, inspired by the sci-fi writers and their rockets? Certainly our response to the Nazis was to destroy them and both us and the Russians captured all of their rocket scientists and made them ours and theirs respectively. Were both nations motivated by the arts as they built intercontinental ballistic missiles capped with massive nuclear weapons, capable of wiping out civilization? Hope not!

These disciplines feed on each other and at different times one is the pusher and then at other times the other assumes dominance. And at different times in history creativity is enhanced by their mutual interaction and at other times they mutually reinforce the worst in us. Look at today's debates about privacy as a topic that tends to inspire fears of big government. I might point out that Star Wars and Star Trek and similar artistic endeavors also depict societies that are governed by massive and powerful governments. While the flip phone was in Star Trek, so was a massive government that ruled across galaxies and many civilizations. Both are their in these artistic works. So we ought to be careful about what we claim for each discipline. Science aided the Nazis and science aided in bringing them down.

While basic academic skills need to be taught, cognitive development and functioning has more to do with the activity of learning than what is being learned.  Music and Art and other 'fluff' classes exercise the brain in a way traditional academic classes like history can't...and make a person smarter just because they have learned to use their brain better.

There have been studies that show music classes actually increase aptitude in classes like math and reading.

Last week, the NY Times published an interesting opinion piece that gives a lot of hope for the future of education. There are still opportunities to mess up, but the legislation was a very nice example of Democrats and Republicans working together to do the right thing. It gives me a little hope that arts education might see some restoration of funding.