feature 25 Ways To Enrich Your Child’s Education With Exposure To The Arts Why Our Future Depends On Creative Thinkers 10 • September2016 / www.flaglerparent.com and passions organically. I know this is true because my daughter loves to sing, dance, act, and draw already. Recently she’s also started reading Shakespeare, watching historical documentaries, playing the piano, and taking hip-hop classes. I am not bragging. But I am keenly aware that I may have been inadvertently putting imagined limits on just how creative my daughter could become. Now, thanks to her example, I am beginning to think that there isn’t anything she can’t do. And isn’t that exactly what I want her to believe? Why do parents put limits on kids’ creative impulses when creative activities clearly benefit real-world performance? My daughter has got the rest of her life to discover and pursue creative activities that light her up from the inside and inspire her to be the best she can be. My job as her If I have observed one thing after a decade of having a school-age child, it’s that arts motivated kids perform better in school. Sure, my daughter comes from an artsy family already. Her mom is a writer and her dad is a theater director, but she’s not an extension of us; she is uniquely herself, and her exposure to a wide variety of arts helps her discover her own passions, proclivities, and personhood. The more types of arts my daughter engages in, the happier and more motivated of a student she becomes overall, even in her most challenging academic classes. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the messages broadcasted prolifically by Sir Ken Robinson, author of the book, Finding Your Element, How To Discover Your Talents & Passions and Transform Your Life. One of the most popular TED speakers and a creativity and education expert, Robinson asserts that the job of education is to teach children to become creative thinkers rather than merely good workers. In addition to Robinson’s theory that a child’s exposure to a steady stream of his or her talents and passions leads to finding future work right in their element, we must remember something else. The greatest challenges faced by civilization are going to be solved by our children one day. Do we want them to behave like well-behaved workers or do we want them to become the creative thinkers, problem-solvers, and innovators they were born to be? Participation in the arts is just as important to raising well-rounded children as participation in academics and athletics. The arts awaken personal power in children by helping them discover their talents by Christina Katz
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