on my soap box

I've been emailing my friend Caroline, going back and forth about art education (actually I've written a lot more because I can be so long-winded!!). It is both of our passions... to an extent. We are both finding that we're not too enthralled with academia. SO much talk about practically nothing when you take out the big words and the lofty professions by so-called academics. She is pursuing her Master's degree and I'm wishing I was. Caroline and I are on the same page... she is brilliant and has proven over the past twenty-one years that she can teach circles around anyone! I knew this when she was in college. Anyways...

It seems art education is only taken seriously these days by people IN art education. Or I should say IN college art education programs and academia. Why is this? Because Art Ed has been considered a fluff course and colleges aren't doing their job in studying how visual literacy and communication is important to our arsenal of communication in general. We are such a visual society. How is this not connecting with Educational Academics?  Because professors of Art Ed think that they need to pontificate about the next new trend... new theory... new anything and everything. This is where we, as a society, get it wrong in everything we do.

My history teacher in high school made it a point to constantly say that if we don't know history, we were doomed to repeat it. And that was a warning about the mistakes, not so much the good things in life. Though both can happen. Or not.

History of health has been painstakingly recorded yet the medical society, mostly fueled by the prescription drug companies and food conglomerates, neglects to look at the science of diet and it's effects on health and healing. Why is that?!!! It's like ignoring addition and jumping straight to calculus... which is done wrong. This is why I'm a follower of The Weston A. Price Foundation and the scientists who are looking at the data from history which is there. Weston Price did his studies during the 30's and 40's when indigenous tribes of people who still ate traditional food existed and could be studied. And he documented his studies well, especially with photography. There is so much to learn from him! And now brilliant scientists are discovering new information about the body's workings based on his foundation of studies-- that what we eat is crucial to our health. One such doctor has discovered a link between sulphur and our cells... something no one is talking about in the food industry right now. Basically we have been told to stop eating eggs, an extremely easy and excellent source of sulphur, and to put on sunscreen when our skin metabolizes sulphur by the exposure to sun and natural vitamin D... because the main medical industry doesn't understand.  Throw out the egg beaters!!!!! Enough with white egg omelets!!! Even vegetarianism... which has been proven by so many peoples over the world's history that it compromises good health. Our Western diet has seeped into all cultures today and ravaged the health of people in every land. Just look at how many people now have crowded teeth and cavities. This isn't how mankind was supposed to be. Look at all the cancer, the Autism, the ADHD, the diseases... seriously... this isn't how people were supposed to function. So sickly instead of full of health!

Academia can easily lose it's perspective of what is logical and real. I am thankful for those academics who are not afraid to study their subject in light of past knowledge. To forget about history and traditions is to make grave errors in all things. The one sure thing in life is that we have history to learn from. I hope that I can teach my own children to understand this concept so that they can make smart decisions for decades and generations to come.

Right now as I was writing to Caroline, I realized that there is no Art Education listed in the curricula of our Elementary public schools in the district. There is Music, Gym and even Library. Where did the Art go? With budget cuts, I am really hoping that it didn't get cut. If it is still there, then why are there no objectives listed? This is a major problem. Am I the one to bring it up with the Superintendent? Aren't there State Objectives that must be fulfilled for Art? If not, then I really have to wonder at the state of education today. This is a very strange world we live in.