Omari Rush has aligned his interests in creating opportunities for communities and individuals to have rich learning and arts experiences through his work as the education manager for University Musical Society (UMS), a position he has held since 2005. Additionally, he currently serves in an advisory role for numerous organizations of varying cultural and geographic scopes: as a governor-appointed Council member for the State of Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, as a member of the Kennedy Center Partners in Education National Advisory Committee, and as chair of the board of directors for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation.
Omari earned degrees in music from the University of Michigan and Florida State University, and while his concert performances as a clarinetist are now infrequent, Omari fills his downtime with running, watching the Cartoon Network, and reading (especially American Revolution literature).
Yes! To the Arts in Education
This is just a quickie reminder that the arts belong in K-12 education.
I say "reminder" because I believe we all know this in our core -- and even in that fuzzy place right outside the core.
I certainly know it in my core and have been making music from that special place since I was a little boy in the '80s, singing Whitney Houston, Freddie Jackson, George Michael, and Billy Ocean around the house. I continued being expressive on the clarinet throughout grade school and college and now I'm back to singing, though just in the car and shower…and maybe one day on
Killer Karaoke.
So, regarding that reminder:
The arts belong in K-12 education because they make kids feel joy and happiness...
The arts have a unique ability to hypnotize the most chatty kids or titillate them in ways that lead to giggles, oohs and aahs, and sometimes screaming. How could we not support that? Aren't those essential parts of being a child? At UMS School Day Performances, it's just as fun watching students during and after the show as it is watching the artist on stage because of those reactions. These days, there are few better examples of the 'joy power' of the arts than
El Sistema, which for years has harnessed this power of the arts to turn around the lives of Venezuela's most desperate and underserved children.
To be clear, rich art experiences also include those that irk, anger, or repulse us. I celebrate any art that makes us feel.
The arts belong in K-12 education because research tells us so…
As a preface: many arts education research studies make me want to scream because they tell us what we really already know in our gut and again, in our core. Also, so many of these studies exist that the absence of one gives folks an excuse not to believe or ignore the possibility of impact. I understand proof is helpful...but only to a point. (Mini-rant done.)
Studies that are being released continue to show that arts education helps improve students' creative capacity, ability to focus, social skills, comprehension, empathy, taste buds, depth perception, teeth whiteness, penmanship, etc. (To limit the arts to facilitating one or more of these developments actually takes away some of their "magic", though we can sometimes certainly oversell that "magic" too.)
Specifically, recent studies have brilliantly highlighted important impacts:
- A study about
Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit clearly connects arts participation and increased graduation rates and optimism about life potential
- MSU researchers Robert Root-Bernstein and Rex LaMore have found that
high achievers in engineering and the sciences commonly possess a trait of sustained arts engagement
- The
National Endowment for the Arts demonstrates that arts participation enhances civic engagement, empathy, and tolerance/cooperation.
In addition to research telling us the arts belong, so are Fortune 500 CEOs who are craving
a creative workforce.
The arts belong in K-12 education because they enhance non-arts learning…
One way this enhancement happens is through arts integration, which according to the Kennedy Center "is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an arts form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both." This
video shows the outcomes of an arts-integrated lesson in which a girl writes a creative story, makes a cool robot, and grows her vocabulary and communication skills through a fun school project.
Also, the arts enhance non-arts learning because school would be super boring without color, singing, dances, recorders, etc. Who would really want to go or be able to focus all day, everyday?
By the way, I also believe sports, outside play, and non-arts field trips equally belong in K-12 education too…but that's another post.
Fortunately, in Ann Arbor, the arts are still in classrooms, but that's not the case throughout our region.
To keep and insert these arts education programs in schools we can take the following brief measures that could hardly be called radical:
- Get involved! We are all talented and can volunteer a service to a school or arts organization, or we can make a financial contribution.
- At the state level, invest more in K-12 education. (Right now it's about $7,000 per pupil, while the investment in inmates is about $30,000 per person. Yikes.)
- Support our seasoned arts and education leaders and encourage them to mentor fresh talent too.
- Add your own art to our community: install a front-yard sculpture, busk with your guitar downtown, chalk sidewalks, screen a movie outside, whistle while you walk, or lend a young person your favorite album.
- Participate in one of our
UMS Youth Education Programs! Good stuff.