Art is a waste of time
Right out of the “schools are only there to produce a workforce” view of the world is this petition.
The subject of art is wasting the time of academic pupils who could better use the time to study academic subjects.
Because, of course, no “academic” pupil would be the least bit interested in “art”.
Other expressive arts such as Music and PE have academic elements art has none.
Okay, so what exactly do we mean by “art” anyway? And when did PE become an art? What’s are we saying here? That developing an ability to draw is a bad thing? That there’s no academic merit in being able to sculpt something?
So Art wastes the time of students who are gifted.
Even those who are gifted artists?
Art teaches students nothing about life and the skills learnt will have no use in later life inless you decide for a career in art.
Presumably then we’ll need to teach teachers the art of prescience?
I also can’t help but think that the author of that petition needs to acquire the art of writing.
“Okay, so what exactly do we mean by “art” anyway?”
I’d go a long way beyond sculpture and drawing and painting and say `controlled expression through expertise’, maybe with a view to making people think about something. That expertise is a quantity capable of being learnt and taught and therefore valid for consideration in schools.
Of course, PE can involve synchronized swimming. OK, that’s not an art, that’s an abomination.
In my day(TM) it was geographers who were condemned as the in-bred lot.
Maybe I’m being too coherent for the petition’s author…
May 15th, 2007 at 9:25 pm