Creativity (and by extension, arts) are extremely undervalued. When there are cuts to education, what are the first things to go? Subjects relating to art. Art students are constantly ridiculed for being "impractical" and "not thinking hard enough about their career", but it's not their fault that the job market is saturated with customer service and retail jobs. Which is pretty funny, because creativity is one of the things that's the most difficult for a computer to replicate (meanwhile clerks in shops can be replaced with self-checkout machines, production lines can be automated, the same with many admin-related jobs).
What I'd like to see is art to be taken more seriously. I want art classes to actually teach students how to draw. It's sad how much art students have to figure things out for themselves, only to hit a dead end when nobody wants their skills. Also, music classes. I don't know how things work these days or if these things are ubiquitous, but my music teachers in school didn't give a shit. They told students to bang on some percussion instruments for a bit and called it a day. Then they'd sit everyone down to watch West Side Story. You think anyone was told about what a chord or a scale was? Hah.
I know it's impossible to "teach" creativity the same way that maths or physics are taught, but it's depressing how many hurdles a creative person has to leap over just to figure out the basics. I want figure drawing and musical modes to have equal importance to algebra and circuit diagrams.
What I'd like to see is art to be taken more seriously. I want art classes to actually teach students how to draw. It's sad how much art students have to figure things out for themselves, only to hit a dead end when nobody wants their skills. Also, music classes. I don't know how things work these days or if these things are ubiquitous, but my music teachers in school didn't give a shit. They told students to bang on some percussion instruments for a bit and called it a day. Then they'd sit everyone down to watch West Side Story. You think anyone was told about what a chord or a scale was? Hah.
I know it's impossible to "teach" creativity the same way that maths or physics are taught, but it's depressing how many hurdles a creative person has to leap over just to figure out the basics. I want figure drawing and musical modes to have equal importance to algebra and circuit diagrams.