GUEST: The arts are basic skills
By NORM KNIGHT
At election time, New Jersey homeowners make a plea: “reduce or at least stabilize my local property taxes.”
Municipal candidates usually claim to be cost effective with a sharp eye and pencil on the local budget. Some may even duck and refer to the community’s education budget.
So if pressure is exerted on that local school board, do we ask: has it sufficiently contained costs, effected economies, or regionalized services? (These are the same questions you first addressed to your municipality.)
Instead of these effective strategies, when faced with the need to restrain budgets, school boards are tempted to axe the arts because they are “frills.”
Yes, the myth that arts are frills may still exist. Has the case been made how germane the arts are to the development of learning and skill acquisition that serve the individual throughout his or her life?
Our students need:
+–to effectively internalize learning,
+–to develop life-long employability skills, and
+–to improve the quality of their lives and that of their communities.
The arts give students access to success, their own creativity, and help in the development of self-esteem–all factors which are known to contribute to intellectual growth.
Basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetical computation and mathematical reasoning listening, and speaking ) were the traditional functions required of schools. But new demands of the workplace identify thinking skills and personal qualities as equally prized in a world facing economic changes.
While basic skills are considered irreducible minimums for low-skill jobs, they do not guarantee a career or access to a college education. Thinking skills which permit the individual to analyze, synthesize and evaluate complexity will enable individuals to master their work. To be exact, thinking skills are:
1. Creative Thinking. Uses imagination freely. Combines ideas and information in new ways. Reshapes goals for new solutions and efforts.
2.Decision Making. Specifies goals and constraints. Generates alternatives. Considers risks. Evaluates and chooses best alternatives.
3. Problem Solving. Recognizes a problem. Identifies discrepancies. Devises and implements GUEST: The arts are basic skills |:
