All this talk about kids and what and how they learn and whether or not it is practical is not interesting beyond the level of magazine articles. Yes, kids learn differently (see Gardiner's Multiple Intelligences) and yes, except for the privileged children the the very rich, they need to find ways to be useful in society. There are, obviously, many ways to do that. On a forum like this, with many artists and other creatives on board, it's not going to be easy to argue against nurturing kids' imaginations.
As a youngster who only cared about art I never gave a moment's thought to how I would survive as an artist or at all when I grew up, despite the consternation, worry and hand-wringing of Depression-era parents. And I always had a part-time job from the age of thirteen until college and after college I never was one day without a job until age seventy. Even now I work every day and earn money with my art. Without inheritance I was able to raise a family and live pretty well and give my kids debt free educations at top schools. Maybe I was just lucky yet I do believe people should pay their own ways and, if they need to, earn whatever is required to do what they want. So, it's a blend of following one's own drummer while also being useful to society that make the most sense in a democratic capitalistic society. Education curricula and societal ideals should provide for both. What's more annoying than a society that degrades imagination and creativity for the sake of emphasizing routine job skills? And what's more demoralizing than people who think their uniqueness and so-called free-spirit creativity entitles them to be fully supported on a public dole? wc ________________________________ From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, February 9, 2013 3:41:08 AM Subject: Re: Skills children learn from the arts On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:37 PM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 7:50 PM, Lew Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Even more annoying about tripe like this is the presumption that everyone >> agrees on the same achieve/success/money definition of education. It's >> enraging. What happened to personal fulfillment, insight or joy? >> > They've become unaffordable luxuries for more and more people in the > 21st-c. > - Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of thing that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that. George Carlin
