Monday, October 5, 2015

Parents May Try Encouraging Students To Graduate By Providing A Place To Paint Pottery As An Elective

By Deana Norton


Salt Lake City, UT is not the only place where housewives and their children are seeking artistic expression. Whether one writes a song, creates a sculpted bust, or just adds their own special touch to a store-bought item, they see benefit by virtue of pursuing the activity. One can find classes at hobby stores nation-wide, but there are some strictly retail operations which have the kilns already firing and are simply waiting for us to find a place to paint pottery.

This is an activity that families can do together, in fact, and it is very beneficial to all members of the household. Teens get to perfect their artistic skills, tweens learn to focus on one thing for long periods of time, and young children work on motor coordination. Those find motor skills are going to help these youngsters as they learn to write.

With the public education system dumping arts and music classes, not to mention physical education and free play, kids need these activities more than ever. The basics of school have always been reading, writing, and arithmetic, and no one would argue that these skills are very important to develop in this ever-changing world. However, without being able to see the world in more than a right-brained manner, the next generation will be little more than cubicle dwellers, and we may see a reduction in new technologies or ideas being developed in the United States.

When you remove the one enjoyable part of a school day, then the rate of students dropping out, skipping class, or engaging in other activities when they should be in class increases. This can only increase the rate of attrition in public schools, leaving this country in worse shape than ever. There are many bright young minds dropping out of public school these days, and a lack of opportunity to express themselves through art is probably at the core of their scholastic retardation.

As time goes on, we are losing more and more intelligent young people to mediocre, mind-numbing jobs rather than them pursuing their own potential. While education and intelligence are not the same thing, intelligence without education will rarely get an opportunity to express itself in our society. When creative people fail repeatedly in a world fueled by linear-thinking standardized tests, they eventually give up on school completely.

There is no doubt that this change in education has been intentional, and society as a whole has been steered in a direction that encourages memorization over learning. Regurgitation of information is prized over the ability to think a problem through for oneself. Because the female students tend to fare better in this world of standardized testing, many teachers, especially in the elementary school ages, try to push the male students into alternative classes and keep only those students who score high as mainstream.

By creative alternatives they are usually talking about special education, and this has always consisted of a dumbed-down curriculum managed through workbooks and multiple-choice quizzes minutes after the material is read. They are not required even to memorize, only to read and moderately comprehend. This allows teachers to focus on the linear, right-brained students who test well.

Has a painting studio the power to keep a student in school through graduation, no one knows. However, it can grant them the opportunity to express themselves artistically, which builds a more well-rounded human being. Perhaps a child can endure the boredom of the Three Rs a little better if their parents provide the electives elsewhere.




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