The current preoccupation with testing and curtailments of arts programs add up to educational and cultural deprivation for today's students. In our haste and intensity to achieve, dominate, and acquire, we should not undervalue the spiritual, mental, and emotional amenities provided by the fine arts, which comprise the languages of civilization.…

During the past decade, arts programs in many American schools have been systematically dismantled. One-third of the seniors in the class of 1982 had no high school instruction in the arts. By denying children the arts, we starve our civilization and produce graduates suited more to an age of barbarism than an era of high technology. Includes…

Since the arts humanize the curriculum while affirming the interconnectedness of all things, they are a powerful means to improve general education. Schools that overlook the arts are creating a less civilized generation. The arts provide a more comprehensive, insightful education because they invite students to explore the emotional, intuitive,…

The landmark 1977 report of the Arts, Education and Americans Panel entitled "Coming to Our Senses," contained recommendations for the future of arts education in the United States. The volume described here, written by a researcher involved in the first study, attempts to show the state of arts education as it was in 1977 and as it is today. The…

Outlines the work of psychologist Howard Gardner, who isolated and identified seven basic, autonomous intelligences. Discusses the ideas presented at a 1989 South Carolina conference that probed the implications of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences for the arts and for education. Contends that the theory of multiple intelligences…