Growing up, I was always the “artsy” type of kid. One of my first memories is of scribbling onto the walls of my family’s apartment, only to be met with disappointment and slight amazement at what I had done. Art has always been the biggest thing in my life, the one thing that could pick me up from even the darkest of places, and I know that many others share the same experience. Even putting personal feelings aside, art and artists are some of the most important pillars in our society. Literature classes spend months overlooking and analyzing the great works of Shakespear, Homer, and Dante. The architects who design our homes and cities are artists, and the works left behind by our ancestors tell us much about the past we do not live in. 

Yet our American education system does not bother with giving the proper funding to its art programs.  

For five years, I attended a school in Alabama, which did not have any art-related classes from grades K-6. Then, in the only year of high school I attended there, they promised an actual art class, only to then go back on their promise. Instead, they would push the responsibility onto an outsourced gifted program – which they did not even consistently provide to anyone from seventh grade and up.  

It was understandable, the school district was poor, having only an elementary and high school. However, what vexes me is that the school still funneled thousands of dollars per year to provide new equipment to its football team – which was infamous in the area for being, at best, unsuccessful. 

Even for schools with well-performing football teams, it and other more oftenly funded extracurricular sports are the source of many dangerous physical injuries that students sustain. 

Football has the highest rate of concussions of any youth sport. One in twenty players under the age of fourteen sustain a concussion for each season they play football. Meanwhile, two in ten high school athletes receive concussions while playing contact sports. Some may argue that those numbers are low enough to excuse the potential risk of brain damage to the underdeveloped mind, however the frequency of brain injuries associated with football in general is a ratio of one for every five and a half games.  

A single concussion is nothing to be direly anxious about, however, several concussions can lead to structural changes in your brain. If a concussion is left untreated for long enough it could lead long-term, chronic ailments, both mental and physical. Someone who continues to play football, or any sport with risk of brain injury, from middle to high school is at high risk of suffering from a few dire hits to the brain. Especially, considering that football helmets are not actually designed to protect players from concussions. 

While consistent physical activity is good, I cannot fathom why schools would be so eager to fund games that put students at risk of permanent damage to the control center of their body. While it is impossible to diminish all risk of concussions, that doesn’t mean it is safe to increase the risk by encouraging these types of contact sports. Adults can make the decision to play these sports, their brains are developed and can process and accept the risks, but a child or teenager is still not mature, making the possibility of brain injury even more grim. 

It is far more sensible to provide funding for art-related classes. Practicing art gives children and teens the opportunity to stimulate their imaginations, as well as their cognitive and problem-solving skills. Studies show that students who engage in the arts are less stressed, anxious, and depressed. It allows them to learn to handle constructive criticism better, as well as develop social-emotional and interpersonal skills. 

More art classes and materials to work with will give students an outlet to express themselves, something that they may not have anywhere else. They can learn to appreciate the world around them through the arts that hold up the foundation.  

The arts open a multitude of career and future academic opportunities for students. Many students and even adults are not aware of the vast amount of careers that involve knowledge of music, composition, color theory, and many more. For example, doctors must pay attention to detail to correctly perform their jobs – something that is a focal point in almost all forms of art. 

If arts education was as equally funded by schools as football, then we would be sending out far more intellectually successful students, with skills that can help them in almost any career. Students would have more ways to express themselves and wouldn’t bottle up their feelings – we would have far less outbursts and fights. Art is a wonderful thing, with so many benefits, it is the backbone of our society and how we know how to navigate it. That is why it is so important to fund art programs in schools.