By Lloyd Metcalf

What if the arts weren’t an integral part of our educational system?

It’s always something that comes up for debate whenever school budgets are discussed. The arts are treated almost like an expensive recess among primary and many higher educational systems that require funding. Why is this the case? Is it because it seems like fun from the outside? Because numbers aren’t apparent? Because they engage with aesthetics?

Arts are always on the chopping block and may not get their deserved attention in the educational system. What would our world look like if the arts weren’t essential pieces of societal growth? The arts foster creative problem solving, an ability to “see” the world more literally and consider it instead of just surviving it. The arts don’t simply produce paintings on the walls of museums. They create the look of this font, how this information is laid out and presented, how your nail clippers fit your hand, how a spoon curves, and how streets are constructed.

Students who study art are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and three times more likely to be awarded for school attendance. These numbers are hard facts. Education is the root of all successful societies throughout history. When the education of the masses crumbles, so do the pillars of progress.

Arts- and music-education programs are mandatory in countries that rank consistently among the highest for math and science test scores, like Japan, Hungary and the Netherlands. The most cutting-edge countries recognize the importance of habitual creative thinking and put it at the forefront of everyday education at all levels.

Without the arts and music, we would be a gray and somber nation. In fact, it could be argued that we wouldn’t be a nation at all. Even financial accounting, what many consider the opposite of the arts world, applies creative thinking in unexpected ways. Numbers need a place to be, patterns need to emerge from data. Would we become a dead society of zombified, mindless wanderers without art, music and design to shape our most useful and essential tools? Mobile device manufacturers put design before function. Cars, silverware, clothes, hammers, coffee cups, every single element in our lives has required an artist or musician, yet when it comes time to look at the budget, arts come to the chopping block.

Federal funding for the arts and humanities comes to around $250 million a year, while the National Science Foundation is funded near the $5 billion range. Is this putting the cart before the horse? Are we dumping energy into solutions to questions that have never been asked? Are we forcing numerical solutions to problems that creative minds could resolve?

Have you ever contemplated what your world would look like without the arts — design, literature, music and film? Do you think that you would be able to function in a world that was devoid of creative thought and endeavor? Have you ever thought about how enriched your life is because of the creative spirit? Or do you just take creativity for granted, not appreciating how every object, every tool, every article of clothing, the words on the page of your favorite book or on your handheld device and the device itself have required and have utilized aspects of the arts and the creative spirit? Can any of these objects, or even an enriched life, exist without the creative energy that is integral to them, or us?