Fine arts education in public schools is really abysmal. The same emphasis should be put on music, theater, dance - anything creative - that's put on math and science.
My mom was a high school science teacher for decades. She just never made it feel like we had to choose between the arts and the sciences. We had bookshelves full of novels, and she also had Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold and Carl Sagan.
I'm hoping someday that we'll be able to start a consortium with places like Carnegie Hall to work on early childhood education. I really feel that's the most important place to put the arts.
I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on for a while. I want to promote the arts as part of the American diet.
I much prefer STEAM to STEM. The insertion of the A is arts writ large, and when you learn how to think, that means that you actually need to understand how others have thought before you, how have others made sense of the world.
I'm on Governor Gray Davis' California Alliance Towards Education to bring the arts back to high schools.
When it comes down to helping kids, a lot of ways for education to move forward is through music because that's exciting to kids. Reading books and going to a bookstore is not that exciting.
The elementary school I went to, Valencia Park, was focused on the arts.
I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.
In Greenville, we were blessed to have lots of youth arts programs. I changed middle schools to go to an arts middle school. Then, when high school came, I went to normal high school for a little while before auditioning for the Governor's School for Arts and Humanities.
Today the arts exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts.
There is compelling evidence that shows student involvement in the arts can make a significant difference in improving educational outcomes for all kids.
In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education.
Scientific research and other studies have demonstrated that arts education can enhance American students' math and language skills and improve test scores which in turn increase chances of higher education and good jobs in the future.
My work in the theater began to shift more towards young audience type of work and education programs for children, arts education programs.
Arts education must be part of our education solution because it works for all students.
So what it boils down to, in my humble opinion, is that we need to support the arts in schools, and at every other level in the education of children.
I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.
You cannot help but notice that schools that take music seriously tend to be more academically successful.
Arts in education is especially important to me. Inspired teachers in our education system is crucial in developing inspired human beings.
My main goal, and it's a big one, is that every child has a chance to get close to music - as a right - that as they have access to food, health, and education, they get the chance to have art and culture - especially music.
I think President Obama really does get the value of the arts.
