By Charles Springer
The education of the majority of Americans who cannot afford the private schools is not a priority of the leaders of this country.
It seems we are going back to the days when you have to be rich to be educated. So the elite can educate their children and leave the rest of the country in an uneducated state.
I guess the reason this country was formed is totally lost on these people. They have the highest education and cannot even balance a budget or keep campaign promises. I guess that’s what they are taught in Ivy League schools.
Meanwhile the ones who teach are ignored when they tell these leaders that this money is important to the welfare of the ones who are seeking an education. They are told that they spend too much for teaching and they should learn to do more with less. That means some children do not even have the books with which to learn.
But that’s all right because their children go to private schools.
Most countries around the world hold teachers, education and the arts in the highest esteem. My experience in communist China, for example, showed me that teachers and artists there are held in the highest regard. They are above even politicians and businessmen on the social ladder.
It was the same when I was in Japan in the late 70s and early 80s. Teachers and artists were held in the highest esteem and given the respect due their station.
The ones who educate us are the very backbone of all that we are as a society. They are the ones who help mold us and teach us to form opinions and values. They are the most important people in our lives outside of our families, and in some instances they are family.
Yet education is not as important to our leaders than, let’s say, power, money, prestige and the military. It’s ironic that we spend more on military than the next 21 or so militarily ranked countries in the world combined. But when push comes to shove, even the military needs educated people to build these “smart” weapons technologies.
So our “educated” leaders are, in essence, shooting their own agenda in the foot when they cut school funding to the degree they have done so far. And the cuts to the schools are cutting into the sectors of the school system that are proven to bring students to the highest capability of learning — the arts.
I, as an artist, see this as the biggest mistake.
It is a proven fact that most people who are exposed to the arts in any form, whether visual, creative writing, music or the theater, excel in all other areas academically. The reason for this is that we, as artists, are taught to “think outside the box.” We are taught to use more abstract thinking than those who are learning without the arts.
For example, I was told that in order to take computer animations classes at Santa Monica College in 1997- 98, I had to take planar geometry. I see on the X, Y and Z planes when I visualize the piece in my mind and on the canvas before I paint it. All of the math majors I have spoken to tell me that this is the basis for this type of math, as well as quantum physics, quantum mechanics and chemistry.
Through art I have a very good foundation for geometry, algebra and trigonometry. I also studied music at the “University” of the Chicago Public Library when I was 21 to 23 and learned to read and write music, which is totally mathematical in its basic applications. I play the guitar and, from that, have learned other stringed instruments and the piano’s basic musical structure.
I also have learned to apply the arts to learning languages by looking for the formula that is the foundation of the sentence structure, which is the same thing I learned in studying the language of music. I have also learned some things about engineering from learning how to use 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-point perspectives in some of my pieces where I use architecture.
And my studies of anatomy have taught me where all of the human muscles, tendons, surface veins and bones are located and where the origin and insertion points for the muscles and tendons are, which is the basis for most of the crippling strikes in martial arts.
This is why teachers and artists are some of the most respected professionals in other countries around the world. We have knowledge of the past and think, therefore, that we are dangerous to any type of administration that seeks to misguide the people of this great nation.
That is why Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and other actors and musicians who opposed the war and other machinations of the neoconservatives are so vocal and are being blasted by them as anti- American. These people think outside the box, as do the teachers who are converging and organizing protests against the state and federal administrations.
One of the artists whom I most admire is Leonardo Da Vinci. The last job for which he was commissioned was not as an inventor, engineer, painter, architect, anatomist or teacher. His last job was advisor to the king of France.
And I ask you, who has more power, the king or his advisor? This should tell you who supports all these cuts, how much education is worth and how much the arts are worth within education. (Charles Springer is a formerly homeless man living in Santa Monica. He is also a freelance artist and writer.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 19, 2003. Read the original PDF.