Next up on the Chopping Block: Your Child's Muse

Imagination is more important than knowledge ~ Albert Einstein

Wicked didn't come to town this past summer, in fact, it was never written, and all theaters are indefinitely dark because no writers had been nurtured (or they were pushed too far underground) when they were young.

The radio plays only news updates because music lessons, no longer taught in schools, are too expensive for parents (but the sports programs are heavily funded because those are money makers, baby) and garage bands have given way to Wii.

There are no pictures in my children's textbooks of foreign places, because photography was a casualty of the demise of print news.

Television has been taken over by reality shows and all movies released are mediocre remakes of old ones, because imagination isn't pragmatic or tangible enough to stand up to millions of dollars in deficits in the public sector.

Okay, all of those scenarios are currently hypothetical (except the last one is mostly true), but can you envision what would happen if the arts are eliminated from schools?

It seems like every year, the VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Department) is up for elimination in schools because of budget cuts, at least where I live.

No arts classes. No choir. Creative writing minimalized. An entire generation reverted back to the Middle Ages, the flip side of Enlightenment. No expression of joy, appreciation for beauty, just the basic courses that offer no reward for looking at something from a different point of view.

I think this sucks.

That apple that fell from the tree to create the law of gravity, remember that lesson? Good lesson; physics, cause and effect.

But what about that apple, which adjectives describe it best? How does it taste, what is the first scent you pick up when you close your eyes and hold it to your face? What does it make you think of? If you could give an apple to anyone in the world, who would it be, and why? Which colors would you use to draw it? What sound does it make when you bite or slice into it? What do you imagine when you twist the stem, making a secret wish?

That is my child's hypothetical dream teacher talking. He/She talks up Newton and how physics govern the Universe, but follows up with a lesson in the arts after their lunch break. This well-rounded academia reigns in my child's dream school, enthusiastically taught, where the yin and yang are never threatened by mismanagement or apathy.

I had such dream teachers once upon a time. One of said teachers was Barbara Bush (no, not that one). My first year in middle school, seventh grade, I took a class called Bach to Rock. It was different, so different from sitting in my chair in elementary school singing a song with my classmates. Mrs. Bush taught us how to take notes in outlines...

I. a person, movement or time period

a) a dated event

b) a turning point

1) something that happened as a result

2) another thing that was created or changed

3) which led to...

c) another catalyst in society, and...

II. the next stage of change...

...and so on. I learned about every composer ever born. I absorbed the Renaissance. She wheeled a piano into the middle of class (from where it usually stood, underneath her Tom Selleck holding a volleyball poster) and we sang Gregorian Chant on Tuesday and Eleanor Rigby on Thursday.

The following year, eighth grade, I took another one of Mrs. Bush's classes called Exploration in Music. We got deeper into the Industrial Revolution, and also explored literature, lyrics, and what societal factors repress, then give birth to, artistic expression. I remember seeing things in a cycle for the first time, unlike the linear time theorem illustrated in my history book with Philae on the cover.

My last year in middle school, ninth grade, my other dream teacher, Mr. Poston, had us compare Romeo & Juliet to West Side Story in English class. I had passed eighth grade English which dealt with syntax and sentence structure with an average grade, but ninth grade English, which required us to define the human experience in our own terms actually required more critical thinking than science or mathematics. It also required more risks; describing emotion (yours and those of fictitious characters) in front of your peers. Scarier than forgetting the Pythagorean theorem during a test, for sure.

When the Mrs. Bush's and Mr. Poston's of the educational realm are gone, so is creative problem solving. So is the belief that the other side of every law or issue must be considered to accommodate the whole. Also cut from he budget will be empathy, compassion, and desire to preserve all that is beautiful because the recognition of it was considered expendable.

And your child's muse. That twinkle in the eyes that is inquisitiveness, the ability to describe what they like about climbing trees. Or just the silliness that all kids are allowed...that will remain because it's inherent, but it will will under-nurtured, under-developed, and "potential" will become synonymous with "hope": something you have to reach for, rather than have easy access to.

I believe the arts are that important.

Can't we cut reality shows instead of the arts? I'll enthusiastically write the definitive outline about the change in the entertainment industry for the better.

I still remember how.

Americans for the Arts, http://www.artsusa.org/about_us/