What can I say? What is left to say? What things, upon saying them here in this format, would not be a repetition of previous said things? That is, things said that were already said by me; previously, in other manners of communication. I can quote other people all day long.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
Oh snap, I think I just got served by Plato.
Actually, at one of my deliveries (The Little School) (A strong contender for: Places I Would Consider Strongly Sending My Own Child Or Children To) (Along with Hogwarts) the administrator has a pretty piece of calligraphy up on her wall, quoting Plato. I can't find any reference to it online, which makes me wonder, but it goes like this: "Let art be the foundation of education, for it can operate during the sleep of reason. And when reason does come, art will have prepared a way for her." I like it. Partly because it's a prettier way of saying what I already feel. I don't know if it can really be exercised to the conclusion of its demand, but the value of art in early childhood is rarely in danger of being overemphasized.
Art programs tend to be the first on the chopping block, because you can't grade art. You can't test for it or quantify it. People even have a hard time defining it... this strange need we have to create the potent from impotent components. I mean, that car there goes thirty miles on a gallon of gas, definitively, but... is it pretty? What government oversight panel can determine that a school's art scores are dipping dangerously low?
There is rarely any conviction associated with that which we cannot define.
- J
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