For decades, the Indian education system has focused on fostering academic excellence to the exclusion of nearly everything else. In valuing a few professions such as Medicine, Law, and Public Administration, the predominant thinking among educators and parents has been that academic rigour alone needs to be held up as aspirational.
Over the last few years, however, this thinking has changed and educators, parents, and students are showing a greater interest in the Arts, as it is seen as an excellent bridge to improve abstract thinking, in addition to interdisciplinary learning.
For example, students doing a project on, say, the Vijayanagar kingdom will gain from research on the music and instruments or dance forms and costumes of its time. Exploring such facets give additional insights into how landmark events were connected to the prevailing culture, which makes it easier to understand other aspects.
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But this is not all. Studies suggest the skills developed due to exposure to the Arts often transfer to other areas of life. This is because art education encourages the adoption of a more open and inclusive approach. It fosters more collaborative and immersive learning and helps students ‘carry over’ learnings from one subject to another, outside the classroom, and from one context to another.
An immersion in the arts also exposes students to their creative side and empowers them to improvise when required. Students who chose to study an art form tend to do better in reading, writing, and Maths. Learning music, for example, is often linked to better Maths scores, improved reading skills, and the ability to comprehend ideas and concepts more easily. Those who have learnt more than one art form also tend to be better problem solvers.
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Although the pandemic has disrupted life, it has also provided an unusual alternative to learners: online classes even in the arts. Such classes have not just provided students with the virtual space they need to access top-class teachers and instruction, but also given them a joyful routine courtesy the ease of instruction, convenience of access, and enabling learning environment.
Online classes in the arts offer quick access to quality art education across a wide range of disciplines, across diverse genres, and a choice of teachers located anywhere in the world. As the world steps into another year of co-existing with the COVID-19 pandemic, learners everywhere must tap into the arts to balance, enrich and support their lives, both at institutions and in their homes.
The writer is the Founder, Muzigal