Arts are questions not answers

The former arts education coordinator for the United States Office of Education, Gene Wenner, makes the following distinction between the arts and some of the other subjects included as part of the regular school curriculum:

"The arts are a questioning process while much of the rest of what's taught is an answering process."

That's an interesting way to view the way art, music, dance, drama, poetry, and so forth are taught; also to think of reading, arithmetic, penmanship, spelling, biology, and so forth as answering processes more than questioning processes.

He opposes, too, that on career nights and for all career programs, that people in the arts take an active part in the program.

He would include secretaries and accountants; sculptors and dancers; lawyers and law clerks; actors and dress designers; firemen and singers; cooks and poets.

What he means is that all of us, whether known as a secretary or a sculptor is an artist -- when we want to be.

And for all of us, whether for a full career or for recreation, we need to meet those for whom the arts are still part of their questions.