Sandia Prep - 532 Magazine - Summer/Fall 2018

FROM THE
Head of School
The original edition of this article was
published in 2011 when I was the
Headmaster of St. Croix Country Day
School. It was written after our Art
Building burned to the ground, and we
were beginning a campaign to rebuild a
better space. I believe, though, that the
content is relevant, so I have made some
revisions and offer it now to you.
Art for Our Sake
Do you recall the first piece of art that you ever created? I
remember mine. I was in Mrs. Boychuck’s kindergarten glass,
and we were making “tear-art.” I don’t know if that is what
it was really called, but it involved tearing pieces of different
colored construction paper and gluing them on a white
background, to make a picture. Most of the kids in my class
were making outdoor scenes of mountains and lakes and
trees. Not me! I made a picture of a bird – a robin redbreast,
to be exact. Admittedly, it was in the minimalist style, and
the bird was flying in a vast white-paper sky. But what made
my picture special was that it was three-dimensional. Yes, I
was way ahead of my time. I had folded a tab on the inside
part of the wing and glued that tab to the body of the bird,
so that the wing (a really beautiful wing) actually flapped.
Genius, right? My teacher was so impressed that she held my
picture up at the front of the class as example of kindergarten
creativity.
I confess, “The Bird” was the apex of my success as a visual
artist. However, my enthusiasm for attending art class never
diminished. The fact is that the products of my efforts in class
were not nearly as important as the process I learned and
exercised in creating those products.
It is an unfortunate truth that the place of art instruction as
an essential core program in our schools has often been
called into question. This is also true of music, theater, and
athletics. It was especially true during the better part of the
last century, when the function of education was to prepare
young people to find their place in an industrial economy,
that art instruction was viewed as “nice, but not necessary.”
Fortunately, over the past several decades, there has been
a growing body of enlightened research that suggests that
instruction in the arts is an essential part of a healthy school
curriculum.
In his bestselling book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink
argues that the schools must give greater attention to
developing the creative, intuitive, conceptual skills of
students in order to prepare them for a new global economy.
Pink contends that while the left-brain aptitudes that
involve logical, linear, and algorithmic thinking continue
to be necessary, they are no longer sufficient. Instead, the
aptitudes characteristic of the right-brain – artistry, empathy,
inventiveness, big-picture thinking – are now the ones that
matter most. A major premise that Pink used to support
his argument is that those left-brain competencies, those
analytical proficiencies, are now being automated and
outsourced, and that our North American economy will
reward those who create, rather than those who memorize.
I’d like to suggest two other imperatives for teaching the arts
in our schools. The first is that when students are engaged
in the study of the arts and the process of creating, they are
at greater liberty to take risks and make mistakes. This is an
essential part of learning. The arts, and I include the visual
arts, theater, and music, are an essential component in a
curriculum that develops in children the confidence to fail.
Finally, exposing children to the creative process, whether this
means enlightening them with the works of the Renaissance
Masters or giving them the chance to make a bird out of torn
pieces of construction paper, is an indispensable component
of any school curriculum that aims to develop mature critical
and creative thinking skills.
Support of the arts programs in schools is vital to the task of
preparing our children for the 21st century.
- Bill Sinfield, Head of School
532 • Summer/Fall 2018 4