When Should a Child Start Arts Education?

It is a known fact that as testing and measurement becomes more important in schools that the arts become less important. The schools fell into this pattern because short-term goals were met quicker and results showed they worked. For many students however, this has been a huge disservice because in the long term, the student's progress has suffered.

According to the Americans For the Arts website, "young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one year are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance", and much, much more. Therefore, while spending 9 hours in a week teaching a child to a test may have great short-term results, it effectively dumbs them down in the long run.

While it is a definite balancing act for a school to provide adequate tutoring and arts enrichment, some schools at least attempt it. Unfortunately, it is often too little too late. In the Metro Atlanta school system that my kids used to attend, the children got a few hours a week of art class and music appreciation class. I spent some time volunteering in each class. I was not impressed. In the art class, children made projects that required lots of instruction and little information. In the art class, the children listened to music and sang simplistic songs. While this is a decent start for kindergarteners, the fifth graders had lost interest and became difficult to control. I feel like the school did not invest in quality age appropriate arts instruction. In the middle schools, the children here are assigned instruments and many learn to play them do a decent level of proficiency, but by the time they enter high school, most have become frustrated and leave the instruments behind. I wonder if they had started playing those instruments in the third grade when they were hungry for more instruction, if they would have kept playing those instruments into adulthood.