More Arts Electives, Please!

Logan Bro is a sixth-grader at New Voices School of Academic & Creative Arts (MS 443) and received an honorable mention.

I learn science, math, and humanities every day. I’ve never had to pick just one of these important classes, and yet that is what happens with the arts at my school. My name is Logan Bro, and I am in the 6th grade at the New Voices School of Academic & Creative Arts in Brooklyn, New York. New Voices is well known for its arts program. In 6th grade students cycle through all 6 arts (STEM, graphic arts, dance, theater, visual arts, and chorus), but in 7th and 8th grade we focus on just one art. I believe that students at New Voices should be able to specialize in two arts electives for the 7th and 8th grades because 6th grade is too early to decide to specialize in one art. Arts can help students in the core curriculum and having even more than one art could have a bigger impact on students’ learning.

Many students, including myself, find themselves interested in more than one of the arts after their 6th grade rotation year, and they shouldn’t have to limit their interests so early to a single art. I was only interested in theater before I took STEM and Graphic Arts. In STEM, I clicked and dragged a house to sit on top of a couple of mountains with a map of the solar system above it using a program called TinkerCad. In my graphic arts elective, I made a superhero chocolate bar where we designed the wrapper in Photoshop with an image of a superhero I created. I am interested in many of my art electives in the 6th grade.

Arts electives also support the core curriculum and having, even more, could positively impact students’ grades. For example, theater can help students speak out loud in core classes because they’re playing a part in a play. In humanities, we had to do an oral report on a travel brochure that we made with a partner. Since some kids don’t like speaking out loud in public, theater might help reduce their fear. Also, arts electives support cognitive ability, which is your

capacity to think. Arts electives assist students with their social and emotional development, and their skills, such as math, reading, critical thinking, and verbal adroitness.

Some people might think that having multiple arts electives is not a good idea. Some students might be more academically inclined or might really want to do a single art, so they might feel that switching to having more arts electives would be a bad thing. As an example, they might just want to do math. But STEM can support math because the ‘M’ in STEM stands for “math.” Also, it’s good for kids to explore things outside of their comfort zone because they might find out they can get better at a variety of arts if they stick with it. Also, some arts elective teachers might feel that having more students for less time is inadequate, and they might not be able to teach them as much about their art. But for arts elective teachers, this might be a good thing because then they can teach more students how to love the thing they love.

Before I came to this school, I’d been wanting to do theater as my only art. I got a really big role for the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 4th grade. I was going to play Oberon, King of the Fairies, but the play was canceled because of Covid-19. I thought I would only enjoy theater when I went to New Voices. Now, I enjoy a whole bunch of art, and I want to have as many as possible! I believe that we should have multiple arts electives because 6th graders are too young to pick just one art elective for 7th and 8th grades. Also, arts electives help you in your core curricula such as reading and math. At New Voices, I've loved the arts I’ve taken and would love it if I could take more in the 7th and 8th grades!