North provides an abundance of opportunities for students to explore their interests in core courses to fulfill graduation requirements; however, students are stunted in their creative choices. Graduation requirements must be changed in order to place more emphasis on creative, artistic classes.
Art helps students not only advance their skills, but it nourishes their creative side and provides an outlet for stress and academic anxiety. Based on the findings of Reginal E. Payne II of USA Today, “Studies have shown that participating in music and art can alleviate pain, help people manage stress, promote wellness, enhance memory, improve communications, aid physical rehabilitation, and give people a way to express their feelings.”
According to the District 202 curriculum guide, students freshman-junior year are allowed two elective classes, and seniors may select up to four electives depending on the number of previously fulfilled graduation requirements.
Upon first glance, this sounds like a wonderful opportunity to fine-tune some basic artistic skills.
Though North adequately accommodates for the graduation requirements, it often fails to allow room for extra classes while also trying to have students meet college admissions requirements. For example, students are only required to take one year of a fine arts credit, whether it is a music, foreign language or physical art. And,when classes like economics and history are taken as electives, students quickly run out of room for the aesthetic arts.
North offers a plethora of art electives, from art foundations, to ceramics, to advanced drawing, but many students, though willing and interested, simply cannot fit any of these types of electives into their already packed schedule. Colleges like University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expect applicants to have at least three years in a foreign language, yet art classes are not obligatory. UIUC doesn’t even count choir or art for fine arts credits.
Currently, there are also striking disparities in opportunities for any student interested in pursuing fine arts or music every year.
For example, band students in their junior or senior year are allowed to take a P.E. exemption and fill that credit with a required history or similar course.
Choir students, though, are denied P.E. exemptions and are forced to take either early-bird gym or sacrifice a foreign language credit to stay enrolled in choir. Students wishing to pursue a career in another field get robbed of the chance to take an art class during their high school years.
Visual art students face similar problems when it comes to taking art all four years. Relying on classes like early bird gym or the Advantage program just to get by and pursue their individual talents and artistic abilities is simply not fair to those students whose interests are accommodated by the school’s curriculum.
As proof of the difficulty for student enrollment, since the 2012-13 school year, North’s art department has been reduced to one teacher. Peter Quimby currently teaches all the art classes.
The district requires a fine arts credit to graduate, consisting of either a music, physical art or foreign language, but incorporating a specific physical art requirement would encourage more students to unlock their artistic side.
No new precedent is needed because adding in new requirements has been done before. Over the last three years, computer science was incorporated as a graduation requirement
By listing physical art as a 0.5 credit graduation requirement, students can finally get exposure to the arts.