Arts and the Innovation Equation
According to the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce the high-wage, highemployment economy that our nation needs in order to maintain a high standard of living requires the U.S. to be "among the top two in every industry in which we hope to be a major player."
STEM education is the key, but the Commission's 2007 report Tough Choices or Tough Times points out that other countries are producing STEM professionals willing to work for wages far below the U.S. standard. America's only competitive edge, says the report, will come from creativity and innovation—ideas that mean technology breakthroughs and "quantum leaps" in the value of products to the customer.
The Commission report endorses a well-rounded curriculum and suggests reconsidering the role of the arts.
Two other leading voices in the dialogue on future workforce skills and economic competitiveness also mention arts education and arts integration as strategies for maintaining America's economic leadership position.
The latest edition of Thomas L. Friedman's book on globalization The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century stresses the importance of the liberal arts in workforce development.
"More than ever," said Friedman, when interviewed for an American Association of School Administrators publication, "our secret sauce comes from our ability to integrate art, science, music and literature with the hard sciences. That's what produces an iPod revolution or a Google."
Daniel H. Pink, author of the widely read A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, shared similar thoughts when addressing the AASA annual conference: "Infuse arts education throughout the curriculum" was one of his recommendations for producing more innovative thinkers.
This article was published in April 2008, Volume 4, No 2.
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