Keep art classes optional
January 31, 2018
I love art and music education, but requiring students to study the arts may result in the loss of valuable time to pursue their interests and acquire more marketable career skills. Especially with the increasingly high demand for STEM jobs, schools should focus on teaching core classes rather than require students to take art and music courses.
Although art and music classes are a great way to show students creativity, they won’t help students get jobs in today’s world. STEM-related classes allow students to use their creativity to fix problems that at first seemed unfixable, which teaches them in more practical ways than in music or art class. For example, during a 3-D printing class, students are able to use their creativity to design an object of their choosing.
In the results from the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment, the United States placed 40th in math and just above the PISA average in reading and science for the 72 countries that were assessed. The United States lowered its performance for math by 11 points and maintained the same results in reading and science from the past year.
The United States, as one of the most powerful countries in the world, should not be placing around average. Our poor performance shows that the United States must emphasize math, reading and science education much more than we do now. If we require arts education, it will take time away from teaching core classes which will not allow the United States to move up in the rankings.
Schools recognize that art and music education is not as valuable as core classes and make their budget choices accordingly. In 2009, Detroit Public Schools was forced to cut their budget which caused them to eliminate arts education in many of their schools. When other school districts around the country were faced with the same issue, they looked to arts education as the first thing to go as well.
Art and music classes should not be mandatory in high school and schools should ensure that students are able to focus on their core classes in order to better prepare them for their futures.
jax • Feb 13, 2024 at 1:23 pm
I strongly disagree
Emily • Mar 11, 2021 at 10:59 am
I agree
Sam • Nov 13, 2020 at 9:12 am
I hate art class with a deep passion but my friends enjoy it. I don’t want it to be removed but I don’t want it forced onto people like me who can’t find much reason to like it. That hour or so should be used for study hall or time for people who do sports to practice.
Jack • May 12, 2020 at 12:21 pm
I fully agree. Arts education should certainly be optional. It’s insane how someone who has no interest in art should be forced to waste their time learning a skill that is neither marketable or fun. I am extremely interested in topics such as politics and economics and I wish that I could take classes accordingly. Sadly, due to my school’s inability to let students create their own curriculum, I am forced to take semesters of art classes that will not serve me in the future. It disgusts me how the United States can test so poorly in STEM related subjects, yet still force many students to waste their time on a subject that has little value in their future lives.
Haley • Sep 13, 2018 at 10:12 pm
Adding to my previous comment – I guarantee that anyone who ever took an art, music, or theater class (even woodshop) would not agree that these classes should be optional.
Haley • Sep 13, 2018 at 10:08 pm
I believe its ideal that we not only keep these courses in our schools but bump them up to become core classes. Students who study art, music and theater have shown to have an increased IQ, improved spatial-temporal skills, a harder working brain, advanced language skills, developed empathy, better problem-solving skills, and self-confidence when compared to students who don’t learn a subject in the arts. Not only this but learning about these subjects helps us learn about other cultures and our history. When you learn about the art or music of a certain time period, its as if you’re taking a hands-on history field trip. Learning about our history helps us to better understand why we are where we are today.