I've made my living as a visual artist working first as an television commercial animator, director and designer and then including commercial illustration into my repertoire. It's a nice way to make a living, and my inclination is to support teaching arts in public schools. I think the arts are as valuable from an economic perspective as subjects like shop, home economics, biology, sociology, Spanish, gym, speech and quite a few other classes I recall from my public school education. The arts certainly don't preempt the basics: readin' 'riting and 'rithmatic, and emphasizing the arts over the basics strikes me as a misplaced priority.
Looking back on my own public school art courses, I've noticed that there was no real curriculum for art studies and the courses were more like study hall periods with paint and modeling clay available. I don't remember ever being assessed and categorized as being above or below my grade level in drawing or coloring. Mostly, the arts seemed to be viewed as a feel good pastime or activity. In fact though, the arts can provide viable careers, and the Twin Cities area has a remarkable creative community for a metropolitan area of it's size. I am not aware of any arts educators in the school system that push art as a possible career though. And in these white knuckle economic times, ignoring the career aspect of the arts might prove to be something of a chronic blunder for the school system's art educators (ie. see ya later, art teachers). If arts are cut from the Minneapolis school system, it would be a small hit to one of those almost intangible quality of life issues that we like. But if the Minneapolis school system is in such dire straights that anything that doesn't have to do with the basic three Rs has to be jettisoned, I suppose that is just a sad fact of life in this back-to-the-basic era. Dean Lindberg Minnehaha REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
