Side by Side #2: Art, Education and Society

These side-by-sides offer evidence about what we write in the book U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society 
Art:  John F. Kennedy wrote, "I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his/her vision wherever it takes him/her."

Artists bring something novel, new perspectives, deeper looks, an insight into human experience, reflections of what has occurred, what is occurring, what will occur. The point we make in the book is that society's  artists work through their "spiritual genius," as Alfred Einstein called it, to provide opportunities for people to behold beauty or its opposite.  All of the significant essentials are there in a piece of art; all else has been excised so that truth can be considered. There are things ethical and moral about creating and perceiving art that have societal implication.

What we have, however, is a general public that has not been taught enough about art.  (By art, we mean all of the arts.) Although there may be broad and distant respect for the arts, the general U.S. public does not love art; it is not something people must have in their lives. Why? The general public is obsessed with non-art. People are barraged with pop culture that is produced to make money off of the public. This stuff is simple, appealing and purposefully crafted to attract the temporary attention of the buying public long enough for the public to purchase said items. As soon as this stuff has run its course, it is forgotten and it disappears off the shelves and airways. Often this junk is produced by novices that have the technical wherewithal to create a computerized song, for example, but who have no concept, not enough experience, no thoroughness of grounding in the core of what art is to create something that "nourishes the roots of our culture". The key words in Kennedy's quote above are "artist" and "art".    


Education:  "70% of 8th graders cannot read proficiently. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. 44% of school dropouts are jobless." – broadresidency.org

Those statistics are bad enough in and of themselves, but The Broad Residency goes on to compare what is happening in U.S. public schools with other countries. Compared to 30 industrialized countries, American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science. Our top math students rank 25th out of 30 countries when comparing our best kids to students elsewhere in the world. By the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are two years behind other countries.

If we are losing the race in those primary subjects, how might we compare internationally in other subjects, i.e., history, literature, art, music, theater.

Society:  Frontpage news headlines selected from the March 29 Huffington Post Newsglide:
1) Who's getting Amy Winehouse's fortune?
2) The Most and Least Religious States in America?
3) Former Teacher Sentenced for Raping, Drugging Student
4) Watch: Army Ants in Creepy Suicide Ritual
5) 25 Most Ridiculous Mascot Moments in Baseball
6) Aerosmith to Release First Album in 8 years
7) Snooki Shows Off Engagement Ring
8) Funeral Home Employee Allegedly Fondled Dead Woman's Body
9) Spike Lee Apologizes For Retweeting Wrong Address for Zimmerman
10) More Details Revealed in Anti-Gay Group's Secret Plans

Ten, that's a good round number. And...headlines like these are not exclusive to Huffington.  It is a given that these headlines were among others more serious, but why highlight these stories? What do these types of news selections say about how and why media markets itself to the society it serves? What do they reveal about society itself?

A Side by Side with "U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society"

Art: "Simply put, when aesthetic purpose precedes exposure and sales, art plays the upper hand. When reversed, it's about entertainment. All the high priced creative talent in the world invested in a product formulated to perform in the marketplace does not add up to a lone artist maintaining the integrity of a single well conceived idea....The point is not the amount of money or labor that is invested, it's the nature of the engagement by both the artist and audience." – Bill Lazaro, Publisher, ArtScene (posted on Huffinton Post, July 26, 2010, Art Versus Entertainment: The Gap is Essential)

Education:  The Huffington Post reported on March 22, 2003, that according to "What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Students,"  conducted by Renaissance Learning, Inc., that American high school students are reading material geared for fifth and sixth graders. "Only 34% of students were rated reading proficient."

Society:  Our democratic election process is dysfunctional and replete with graft. We have huge money machines supporting candidates that, if elected, will be in the position of power to do the will of the money machines. With the right to vote, most eligible voters don't participate. Many who do vote are ignorant of various candidates' philosophies. Most cannot decipher the language of the various referenda on the ballot and punch Yay or Nay anyway.  What might the "Founding Fathers" think of what has become of the ideals they held?

 "Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money to be defeated."– Will Rogers

Political candidates (on both sides of the aisle), like vultures, feed upon the poor disenfranchised people in big cities by having the candidates' workers walk around with money in their pockets. They distribute this money to prospective voters in exchange for the voters' agreement to vote for the candidates represented by the stooges. Money wins by purchasing votes.

I couldn't help but compare this U.S. crisis of politics with Upton Sinclair's description of Chicago in the early 20th century.  

From The Jungle (Upton Sinclair):  "...the (leader) took Jurgis and the rest of his flock into the back room of a saloon, and showed each of them where and how to mark a ballot, and then gave each two dollars, and took them to the polling place, where there was a policeman on duty especially to see that they got through all right. Jurgis felt quite proud of this good luck till he got home and met Jonas, who had taken the leader aside and whispered to him, offering to vote three times for four dollars, which offer had been accepted....(Jurgis) learned that America differed from Russia in that its government existed under the form of democracy. The officials who ruled it, and got all the graft, had to be elected first; and so there were two rival sets of grafters, known as political parties, and the one got the office which bought the most votes. Now and then, the election was very close, and that was the time the poor man came in."

Although this The Jungle is fiction, I defer to John Updike when he said in an interview on NPR not long before his death something like...."Truth is fiction; fiction is truth".  

What is proposed in the book, U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society, is that everything causes everything else. What our schools demand that students achieve or don't achieve eventually surfaces in our society.  Our society is reflected and predicted in art. A society that cannot discriminate between art and entertainment is unable to perceive itself in art's  mirror. Some of those that attend and graduate from our floundering schools become teachers. And the circle is perpetuated.

The circle must be disrupted and reshaped into a system that guarantees that our schools graduate well educated students, our society expects itself to be able to understand and improve itself through engagement with art, the election system encourages the most brilliant minds and best people to serve publicly and the voting process is devoid of financial influence.

U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society available at Kindle Store

Our new book, U.S. Crisis: art, education and society is now available for $5.99 at the Kindle Store. If you don't have a Kindle e-reader, download the Kindle App for free and then you can get to the book.

Eric and I look forward to the generation of serious conversations (through this blog site) about the issues we raise and, most importantly, how to move forward to create a movement directed at the improvement of the prevailing attitude toward the arts in the United States and the development of a "REAL" way to deal with the slippage of quality in the U.S. education system.

Any change for the better in these two areas will certainly contribute to the possibilities for our children to construct and live in a better society–a culture that represents the best our country can be.

Questions Create Buoyancy

1. 
   

   We live in a culture fed by technology, delivering international news almost simultaneous to the events as they occur. Compassion weariness can lead people to polarizing issues as a reaction, leaping to "right" or "wrong" stances reflecting their values. Opposing positions on a linear axis leave little room for discussion. When "Value" is used as a verb, the term promotes wonder, questions, and dialog.

   
   

    Thinking and speaking in questions creates buoyancy in the conversation and spawns ever deeper and more meaningful questions. Our intention with this book is to trigger the ongoing productive dialog regarding what is going wrong with arts, education and society by inviting substantive questions. We should not expect immediate answers or involve pejorative comments that flatly criticize or condemn. We all know the problems.

   
   

    Getting to the answers is an exciting process of questions that together reveal vectors of entry toward the issues’ centers. There are no quick fixes. Revamping the mindset of the collective is the ultimate goal and respectfully requires many minds working together to identify and articulate the "disease". 

                                                                                                                                                                                  – Eric Funk
2. 
   
   

   
   

   Once the book is available and people have an opportunity to read and respond, significant dialog will ensue.

   
   

   
   

   As Gary points out, most of what we have said is not new. Rather, it has remained unsaid. For the sake of status quo, too many people remain silent, suggesting acceptance of the problems. Social structures may reward a suspension of high neutral and sustained ambivalence. There is, however, a critical point when looking the other way contributes to the erosion of quality simply for resignation to the tacit agreement that the situation, while untenable, must be accepted as a given.

   
   

   Revolution has a deep connection with turning that which is static toward something more fertile, promoting growth. Working in a “living” space inspires and ignites natural human passion. Working in a dead space does neither. The terrarium effect forces growth back on itself by simply having an upper limit.

   
   

    I don't like the phrase "think outside the box". There isn't any box. Once someone says that phrase, they have just put you in one. There isn't any terrarium either. The only upper limit is self-imposed or requires the individual to accept the imposition.

   
   

                                                                                                                                                                                          –Eric Funk

Excerpt Chapter VII: Manifesting the Dream - The Academy

 Chapter VII (Manifesting the Dream) excerpt:

"After the music concluded, my hands automatically lifted to applaud, but I held my breath instead slowly dropping my arms. No one applauded. There was hardly a sound in the room. I moved quietly to a nearby chair against the wall and sat down.

The musician’s face relaxed into a new countenance. The audience waited. No one moved. Then, just at the moment of complete readiness, he lifted his violin and began to play again. I had never heard or felt anything quite like it in my life. As the music continued, everyone in the room seemed to be breathing together: inhaling, exhaling – breathing in the aesthetic again and again. I thought that these were remarkably hopeful moments – as if the music’s soul was being presented.

After the last note, a kind of rich silence fell over the audience leaving it in something of a tableau suspended in a state of awe. There were no calls for encores; no clapping; no shouts of “Bravo!” no tossing of flowers onto the stage; no whistles or whoops; no customary standing ovation. The sweat on the musician’s face sparkled in the light framing his smile, and he said, “Thank you for coming!” He lowered his head and walked off of the stage."

Chapter VII of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society takes the reader to The Academy - an imaginary campus. There, the students, faculty, everything about the campus, really, exhibits education as it ought to be. The reader strolls through The Great City, attends a concert, happens upon an exotic campus (The Academy), participates in a remarkable aesthetics class, meets marvelous students and learns of The Academy's philosophy at a "faculty seminar" - a get-together of The Academy's faculty at a local pub.

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                – Gary Funk

 

Excerpt Chapter VI: Time to put Shoulders to the Wheel

Chapter VI (Solutions) excerpt:

"For the sake of all those who love and value education, inquiry and the advancement of human kind, there is no choice but to put our shoulders to the wheel, take the risks, and spend the time and energy required."  

Chapter VI of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society lists the characteristics of the Community of Scholars and describes the characteristics of a New Academy.

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                – Gary Funk

Excerpt Chapter V: Irreconcilable Differences

Chapter V (It's All about Teaching and Learning) excerpt:

"There may be irreconcilable differences between teachers who give everything away, all they know, all they feel, and the students who wait to be taught, wait to be inspired, wait….waiting…."  

Chapter V of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society explores the collision that occurs between some faculty members who are excited about their disciplines wanting to get into it and students that just want to get out of class, of school, and on with life. What characterizes excellent teachers and how do they deal effectively with today's students and their needs?

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                – Gary Funk

Excerpt Chapter IV: Can engagement with art make us better people?

Chapter IV (The Arts Humanize) excerpt:

"People involved in art are provided with opportunities to absorb, intentionally or by osmosis of the aesthetic, the characteristics of the beautiful thing that disrupts normal life and normal perceptions. In this absorption, they may sense what it is like to be more inwardly beautiful people." 

Chapter IV of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society deals with questions such as "Who are artists?," "What do composers compose?", "How does engagement with art help us form a sense of life?",  "What does music teach?', "How does art teach the truth about the human condition?", "What music is Best for us?".

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                – Gary Funk

Excerpt Chapter III: Conservatory Trained Faculty vs. the Liberal Arts

Chapter III (The University Music Schools and Their Problems) excerpt:

"Fatigue sets in as a result of the frustration between what university music schools are and what they ought to be. The problems begin in the music school when universities, that are becoming increasingly provincial, pit school against school, department against department for dollars. University money is distributed to schools within the university based partly upon the number of students declaring majors in the respective schools. Music schools bolster the number of documented music majors, accepting and unduly encouraging too many students who should not, in fact, be accepted as majors by the school. It is nearly impossible to find a remedy because the music schools that promise to provide high quality education for its students often begin the process dishonestly."

Chapter III of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society takes readers inside the Music School by discussing the incompatibility between conservatory trained music faculty members and the proper delivery of General Education courses at liberal arts institutions. Additionally we explore the influence that a "music-rich", "general education poor curriculum"   has upon its graduates as people, citizens, parents, performers, and teachers. We touch upon the characteristic domination of product over process in today's music schools.

                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                – Gary Funk

Excerpt Chapter II: University students graduate without receiving a higher education.

Chapter II (The University and Its Problems) excerpt:

"The business of education is essentially drowning the art of education resulting in some of our university students graduating without receiving higher education."

Chapter II of U.S. Crisis: Art, Education and Society answers the following questions: What causes the lowering of academic standards at universities across the country? What are the differences between what the public perceives is happening at the university and reality? What are the characteristics of universities that are making the huge shift from liberal arts education to vocational training? What effect is university adoption of the business model having upon the quality of education and who is inevitably put in charge as a result of that evolution?

                                                                                                   – Gary Funk

Excerpt Chapter I: Stuff that looks like art but isn't art.

Chapter I (A Dark Age for the Arts) considers the great hunger in U.S. society to become famous, the role that art-related technology plays in helping to satiate that appetite and the power of the rule of "mass taste" to determine the cultural diet that consists primarily of nutrition-less stuff that looks like art but isn't art.

The following is an excerpt from Chapter I

What we don’t have are people that know they are starving, that have an aesthetic hunger making them value the nourishment of great art. But then, in many cultures, great music and literature isn’t something people do like in America; it is something they are. It is as necessary as air, water, and food. 

                                                                                    – Gary Funk