Recently New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he is prepared to see schools in the country deferring the arts and music curriculum in order to improve results in mathematics and reading.
To justify this he posed the questions “how do you become world leading in agriscience” and “get a four-lane highway from Auckland to Whangarei” if kids don’t know how to do maths and read properly.
It does sound alarmist doesn’t it?
I can picture all those thousands of parents across the country terrified their children won’t get to study ruminant animal nutrition or be able to work out the required angle of a side slope on State Highway 1.
Yes I’m being flippant, but I find it rather disturbing that the only industries the Prime Minister referenced as to why we need to improve our educational standards are farming and construction.
Does he not know that our economy and indeed our society are way more diverse than that?
Let’s take a quick look at the creative industries in New Zealand which according to the Ministry for Ministry of Culture and Heritage was valued at $16.3 billion NZD or 4.3% of GDP in 2023.
Here is a list of just some of the ‘arts and music’ this country creates each year and has done for generations. Some are of New Zealand origin, others made here by overseas companies and thus employ kiwis:
Films: The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Trilogies, Boy, King Kong, Avatar, Whale Rider, The Piano, Once Were Warriors.
TV dramas: Shortland Street, Outrageous Fortune, The Brokenwood Mysteries, Gloss, Under the Vines, Wellington Paranormal.
Musicians: Lorde, Hayley Westenra, Split Enz, Dance Exponents, Six 60, Dave Dobbyn, Shona Laing.
Authors: Kerri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Eleanor Catton, Janet Frame, Margaret Mahy.
Oscar winners: Peter Jackson, Jane Campion, Ngila Dickson, Taika Waititi, Anna Paquin, and others.
We also have a flourishing gaming industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The full list of accomplished people and the works they produce in this country’s creative industries is huge.
Imaging telling any of them when they were young “no, sorry, we don’t value your talents, and we are not going to invest in your educational interests”.
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The other part of the equation is the ample research to show how arts and music education fosters creativity and influences neuroplasticity in the brain. Indeed an OECD report in 2022 called Impact of arts eduction: From advocacy to evidence, categorically emphasised the role of arts education in acquiring the necessary skills required in a modern globally integrated world, namely: – creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning, communication and collaboration.
So Mister Luxon here is a question for you to answer:
How does our country develop world class authors, movie makers, TV script writers, musicians, photographers, fashion designers, and dancers if we haven’t taught them the essential skills they need and haven’t encouraged them?
I’d like you to remember that education is not just about getting a job. It’s about teaching kids how to think, how to question, how to create. And surely, isn’t it also about instilling in them a sense of wonder and joy about all the incredible things human beings have discovered and invented? To learn about all the remarkable ideas and philosophies we grapple with? Learning is far more than a means to an end. It is how we understand ourselves, it is how we discover new things and continue learning for life and most importantly it is about how we share what we know.
Deferring any of that is not only self-defeating, it is cruel.
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