GoArts News:
- January 26 Senate-House Dialogue a Success
Before a full Senate Chamber and gallery, Senator Florence Shapiro chaired a special briefing on The Role of Creativity in 21st Century Workforce Preparation. - Watch the dialogue (to visit this link, you will need the RealPlayer application installed)
Creativity and innovation will be the keys to success for students entering the workforce of the future according to business and technology leaders who addressed Texas Legislators at a special briefing Monday in the Senate Chamber chaired by Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano).
“Schools need to promote creative, inventive thinking by integrating the arts with other subjects,” Sen. Shapiro said. “It’s not about art or science; it’s about melding the two and promoting both of them together.”
Business and technology author Daniel Pink told legislators that many white collar jobs are being sent oversees. “Certain kinds of work done by lawyers, accountants and engineers requires brainwork but it’s routine and is being outsourced.”
He said that employers are seeking people who have the ability to innovate, communicate and adapt to change. “Those are the sorts of abilities that kids learn in the arts. I am gratified that Sen. Shapiro and Rep. Eissler had the foresight to begin this conversation here in Texas about how we can do right by our kids and prepare them for their future and not our past.”
IBM Master Inventor Viktors Berstis, who has more than 100 patents in his name, said that his early training in music helped him identify patterns that enabled him to apply solutions to problems. “Music turned out to be excellent training for my brain,” he said.
Raymond Hartfield with AT&T said that a music background can be a tie-breaker in employment decisions. “We look for artists because those are the people who are going to fill those 21st century jobs. They have to know the science to comprehend but they have to go beyond the science to serve the customer.”
NASA spacecraft integration expert Jack Bacon testified: “What I have noticed in my technical career at NASA is that the arts have been very valuable in every facet of what we do, that we tend to cherish the use of all sides of the brain in very complex technical disciplines.”
Pink also pointed out that China has established centers to integrate arts education into the national curriculum “because they realize they are not going to have an economic future merely being the routine manufacturer for the rest of the world. And that should be alarming to us here in the U.S.”
“I fear that our schools are going exactly in the opposite direction,” Pink said. “They are increasingly about routines and standardization at precisely the moment that the economy is no longer about those things.”
In Texas, student enrollment in music and fine arts courses has been declining in recent years, according to Robert Floyd, Executive Director of the Texas Music Educators Association. “We want to make sure we are not moving in the wrong direction when other countries are changing their education systems to enhance right brain creativity and thinking,” Floyd said. “We need to recognize that a well-balanced education is important for all students.”
Sen. Shapiro said she brought the panel of experts together to help legislators understand the future challenges that students will face in a rapidly changing economy. “We have to make certain that our schools provide our students with the kinds of skills and abilities that employers are seeking for the jobs of the 21st century,” she said.