How do you think creativity gets into kids heads? Ever since we were kids, parents gave us crayons and paper to doodle or just let our imagination run wild. In elementary school, art was included in all of my classes. When I got to middle school, art and music was a requirement, but not everyone liked it. When I got to high school, art and music was not as emphasized or supported then I thought. Actually, it was hardly supported at all. All people could talk about is sports. Art and music can help enrich the lives of everyone.

I know that I’m not the only one in high school that experiences this. All across America, art programs are being taken down to fund sports more. Art and music are always doing fund raisers but I rarely see and sports do them. I’m in marching band and we do fund raisers all year long. In the summer, we are doing car washes, pie orders and our home show in the fall, a craft fair in the winter, and our jazz band pasta dinner and tag sale in the spring. I hardly ever see the football or soccer teams fundraise because all the money goes to them.

Like I said before, art and music bring out the creativity in people. Kids bring out all of their imagination through art and music. They can be any character they want and make it stand out. Do we really want to live in a world without creativity or imagination? I mean, can you even imagine one? Art even teaches students to be wrong and just keep going along with it. For example, in a theatre production, if you forget a line, just make something up on the spot. It’s called improvising and no one will know. You just have to be creative and keep the scene rolling. It’s harder to do that in sports because one mistake can lose you the whole game.

There have been studies shown that students who do art or music are generally smarter than those who don’t. According to The College Entrance Examination Board, a study showed that “students taking courses in music and music appreciation scored higher in the SAT than students with no arts participation.” They even noticed the more kids associated in music received more academic awards than non-music students. Sports help you physically but how much brian smart are they getting on the field just running around? Creating art helps you see the world in another light and bring new ideas to kids heads. It teaches kids to create their own originality instead of following everyone else’s because if everyone was the same, how boring would that be? All school ever does is set kids up for standardize testing. It is something that all classes do. But what they do not teach is critical thinking. Students should learn how to think critically because that is how we are going to survive in life. When am I ever going to need to know the quadratic function or how to name ionic compounds?

I have been playing clarinet since fourth grade and have loved it ever since. It is the only instrument I play but I have been dancing since I was four and started doing plays when I was a freshman. I really love everything that I do and I wish there were more music classes in high school. At my school, there is band, choir, and orchestra but there is no music education or music theory. I wish there were more options but since music is not as popular as sports, the school does not offer these classes. And since they need more money in the budget, the board of education does not fund music classes anymore and just two years ago, they stopped funding the drama club. You don’t have to like the music department but people could at least support it.

I understand that the school gives most of the money to sport programs is because they are more popular. However, why do schools want to take away the creativity. Plus, it’s not fair for all the students who like to take art and music programs. It crushes their dreams on what could turn out to be amazing. In band or any music class, students are always engaged in creating a new piece or taking someone else’s and making it their own. What if a student made a masterpiece and it was never shown or discover their artistic talent? That would be tragedy.