By Brielle Ballantine
OP-ED Editor

School art classes matter more than ever now, and with more and more schools cutting their art funding, they’re taking away a vital source of education. Not only is art a safe and healthy way to express yourself, but it can help kids develop communication, imagination, and creative skills.

According to the Dryden Art Department, brain research proves that Art education “strengthens problem-solving and critical thinking skills, adding to overall academic achievement, school success, and preparation for the work world.”
Art education can help children develop creative skills and help spread their imagination. Art is a safe place where many go to too feel comfortable and express themselves.

“Art is a vital part of society,” senior Lia Benyishay, who has been in the art program here at Neshaminy for three years, said. “Why not cut math? Why would environmental studies be more important than expressing yourself?”

Art, Math and Science education should be put on the same level, but many feel that art is lower in standards compared to the other classes in the curriculum. Not one class is more important than another, they’re all an important part of education.

“They’re important for different reasons,” senior Taylor Schiavoni, who also has been in the art program for four years, said. “They’re some students that will go into a field that needs mathematical experience, but then there are artistic students who could utilize tools in the classroom.”

Art teaches students to be more tolerant and open through different perspectives and their participation in the creative process itself. It can help kids develop crucial communication skills, along with important skills in decision-making, self-confidence, leadership, self-discipline and complex problem solving while working with others.

“Photography gives me a way to look at the world in a different perspective and be able to analyze and see it in different lights,” Benyishay said. “It doesn’t just help me if I’m taking a picture, if I’m in a situation, I can visualize both sides and it has given me vital tools for life.”

A 2005 report by the Rand Corporation about the visual arts argues that the stimulation of artistic experience do more than brighten a persons life; according to the report, they “can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of seeing.”
Art can help close the gap between children who have grown up in a upper class environment who have been exposed to arts earlier in life rather than kids who have grown up in a low-income household.

According to an article on edutopia.org, Eric Cooper, president and founder of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education said. “Arts education enables those children from a financially challenged background to have a more level playing field with children who have had those enrichment experiences.”

The popularity of Art education has been slipping for the past three decades; the result of tight budgets, and state mandates that have been packed in the classrooms curriculum.

Many people who have grown up with out art in their lives do not understand and appreciate it’s importance now. “Art is over looked in the curriculum, people and students don’t think its as important, but the kids who are actually passionate about it think its very important.” Taylor said.

Art is a vital source of education for everyday life. Not only does is give students and educational experience, but it can teach kids live lessons that they’ll use for the rest of their lives.