Fine Arts in Schools by Erin

Fine Arts in Schools by Erin - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

Humans are not invincible creatures. We all feel stress and pain, we have things that annoy us and overwhelm us and they don't make us weak, but make us, well, us. What comes with those anxieties and those stressors are our personal outlets. Something we can do to relax ourselves or at least forget our problems for a little while. It can be exercise or reading or coloring. For me, it was music. I joined my school's band in the sixth grade just wanting to try something new, but I ended up finding a community of friends and an activity that could make me forget everything hectic going on in my life for a couple hours while I helped create something beautiful. It was a very significant step for me and my mental health at just 12-years-old.
It wasn't until two years later that I learned of the crisis that holds the fine arts in a vice-like grip. Neighboring school districts were doing away with the arts altogether. No choir, or art, or band, or drama to offer their students. It was almost like the kids were expected to endlessly do schoolwork until they became zombies who didn't know how to do anything else but work. This wasn't just happening in my area, but continues to occur all over the country. Some of my friends weren't allowed to pursue the arts in high school because they were responsible for schoolwork and nothing else. Therefore, I have seen firsthand what that choice can do to a student. When a human doesn't have a release, but continues to work and stress at the same or higher levels, it's only a matter of time before they break down.
In our society, college is almost viewed as a necessity, the answer to the question of a person's success somehow relies on going to a higher institution. This makes competition fiercer, student pitted against student. The stakes get higher every year and so do the tuitions and it would be a lie to pretend like no one thinks about the debts that they'll have to carry in four years, crippling them like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. As each year passes, the work load rises and the requirements skyrocket. New levels of stress are found until a person finds a release or fizzles out.
I'm not saying the fine arts are a solution for every one. They're not. But for a large group of students, they are. Those classes are places for a teenager to create and think in a plane different from mathematics and grammar. They're allowed to pursue something completely different than the rest of their day and that's not a liability, that's the future. The ability to make something your own and let the creative beast inside of you come out shouldn't be something schools are taking away. They should be viewed as just as important as any other class. They're just different.
Fine arts may not be viewed as the most socially acceptable or lucrative route in life, but classes like band can mean the world to a student who is feeling overwhelmed by everything else going on in their life. The fine arts can make academics look less daunting and they're actually cathartic enough to ensure a student that they can overcome the obstacles set in front of them. Without these classes, overall student mental health is likely to decline until students are convinced there's nothing more to life than working and cramming and stress when that's simply not true. It is important to preserve these classes in our schools because they're not a waste of money or time, they're an emotional and mental outlet to the students who only want to do their best in school.