Art has always been a part of our lives. We were first introduced to it at an early age, either through play groups or when we first went to school.
Nowadays art is still being taught, but the training providers are now finding it harder year on year to justify the teaching of this subject because of budget restraints and the looking forward as to whether having a qualification in this matter will lead to a job at the end of your academic years.
I want to take look at the benefits of doing art, and how it helps us as people in our everyday lives whether we are a budding Picasso or not.
Learning about art at a young age to me is fantastic. Small children have such great imaginations and love to paint, draw and make things. When we are younger our brains are more open and we are able to learn things at a greater rate then when we are older. The reason for this is that within our brains as a young child we have areas that are active and open and so if you want your child to learn art, music or a language, this is the time to do it. As we get a little older, these areas of our brain are not as receptive and this is why sometimes we find it hard to learn new things, or it takes a while for something to sink in so to speak.
The other great thing about learning art early is that we have very vivid imaginations and the creative side comes out. We see children happily painting and drawing and they go into lots of detail about the image they are creating and what it is about. We have no fear when we are younger and this is good because we don’t think about what other people may say about the monster with three heads and six eyes that we have just drawn. We are also good at making up stories and play role is another area kids love. They all love dressing up and becoming their favourite character.
All of these things help us in our early years, to be creative and use our imagination. We also think for ourselves and create our very own works of art or plays if you like the performing arts. What we see early on is children working together, sharing their work with friends and talking about the work that they have done. Some children may find that some of the other subjects that they do at school like English for instance, makes them feel less confident, and in class do not speak up or join in as much. Although art is still a learning subject the actual way in which you learn, enables the less confident kids to relax more and therefore come out of their shells. You may also find that some children are in fact more creative and apply themselves better in this subject than some of the other subjects, so the teachers will look to encourage this as the skills the child will learn in this class, can then be transferred to the other classes. Speaking in class or standing in front of other pupils may be a but daunting, but because art is fun, a child will learn to build up their confidence and these fears will slowly disappear.
So you can see that art is a very important part of our early development years and with having this subject on our curriculum, it encourages young people, but also helps to develop us as a human being. Life skills are always important for all of us.
Art can help us feel part of a group or community. When we do art we feel much better in ourselves. We make friends more easily and we perhaps do things that would wouldn’t normally do. We listen more and we accept other peoples different cultures and different opinions. Discussions in an art class, encourage everyone to be open and that no one is here to judge anyone. The quieter pupils feel part of a group and the teachers will encourage them to speak as everyone’s ideas and opinions that are for the good of the class matter.
These classes I think are the very foundations that help us grow and become who we are and help to prepare us for the world as adults. I am all for keeping art classes going and I am sure when reading this you will feel the same. I feel that sometimes the focus is too much on money and not about life and our future lives Lets hope that art in our education continues for years and that the fund masters find a way to allow this to happen