No Strings Attached

Kathleen David's weblog

Creativity is Important for Adults and Children

Posted By on November 29, 2012

There is an article that was brought to my attention today entitled The top 10 Skills Children Learn from the Arts

We are fortunate that at this point Caroline’s school offers Arts and Music enrichment to their students. We also live in fear for the budget cut that is all going to make that go away. But right now she is in a pretty good situation. The Library less so since the school board decided that one librarian can serve more than one school at a time (but that is a rant for another day).

Because she has taken music and chorus since she was in kindergarten, she can read music and that is entirely due to her chorus teacher. Last year she learned to play the recorder and was pretty good at it. Now she is working on playing the flute. It is not easy but she is trying hard to learn the muscle memory needed to play. She participates in the extracurricular chorus, which teaches her discipline because if she misbehaves she knows she is out and it means a lot to her.

Because she has an art teacher, she has learned both about art and how to make it. She has learned skills and techniques that have made her a better artist. She really liked it and wants to learn more.

She has opportunities to participate in the school play if she wants. There is an after school group that is for theater games and scene study.

One thing that has vanished is the gifted program for the bright kids. No money for it any more so the teachers so what they can to make sure that the children are challenged.

However it can vanish in an instant because of things like “no child left behind” and state regulations along with school budgets and state and federal funds.

Caroline I am not that worried about. She is creativity and imagination walking on two legs. It is part of her like breathing.

The kids I am worried about are the kids that don’t have the advantages that she has. The kids that tend to slip through the cracks. The kids that have a hard time thinking outside the box or seeing the potential in things. These sorts of people are what built America and now it is vanishing. America was built on innovation and we are losing that skill in the classrooms and in our children.

I am grateful that Caroline has the teachers she has in school.


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