When we study great past civilizations, what do we revere about their cultures? Not their military conquests. Their glamor quickly is reduced to dry footnotes and maybe a movie script. It’s through the arts: music, painting, sculpture, dance, architecture and crafts that we achieve the nearest thing to immortality.
So why are so many public schools bereft of art instructors? Why has attention to the arts largely withered away in recent years? Are [the arts] frivolous and shallow? Just the opposite. Let’s just say they didn’t fit in with the emphasis established by the former chancellors Klein, Black (don’t forget the middle fare in the sandwich) and Walcott. They had other educational “priorities” often adrift of education itself.
Chancellor Fariña has recently increased the funding for more arts facilities and materials by a couple dozen million dollars. That’s still a paltry sum but it’s a windfall after the dry spell of neglect.
The arts are an indispensable part of the “major subject” of civilization itself.
Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows
