So I saw a TV commercial encouraging maintaining arts/music in schools curriculum the other day. I didn’t pay much attention to the details and I am not really a government program gwonk (whatever that is) but I assume someone in their infinite wisdom is cutting money supporting these things in schools.

Well, in general, I would say I would jump on this soapbox.

But.

I won’t because of ignorance with regard to the choice. Huh? If I support this, does funding get cut from some other children’s education program? As I stated I am not a policy gwonk so I don’t really know how these things work.

But.

Here is what I do know.

Every child is born curious.

And every child has an unopened box of curiosity which has a key to open it.

And I do know every child needs a different key to open it.

For me it was words. Words in songs. Words in books. Whatever. I listened to the radio music incessantly and read every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy book I could get my hands on. Somewhere in elementary school a teacher read us Tolkien’s The Hobbit during reading hour. (I couldn’t wait to be able to read it on my own.)

For others I assume it’s something else.

The stars and planets and space.

Playing an instrument.

Understanding what makes things run and go.

How do things live.

Why is the grass green and the sky blue.

Crap like that.

Frankly I don’t care about any individual program (music, math, social studies, chemistry, etc.).

What I care about is giving children a box of keys and let them figure out what opens their curiosity box. And then making sure that curiosity never grows hungry. That it can be fed for as long as they want to keep eating. Curiosity will never have an obesity issue .. there should be an all-you-can-eat buffet 24-7 for kids.

Is that realistic?  Once again, frankly, I don’t care.

This is me being unreasonable. Having music fight for money from sciences who is trying to make sure they have money from machine shop/woodworking is kinda nuts. You are choosing among the children (literally and figuratively).

So while I am okay with a TV commercial fighting for something like music in schools I am not okay that money has to be spent on the fight (versus actually using the money for feeding kid’s curiosity).

This is not “no child left behind” (although I guess if I did some research I could be really sure about that statement).

In fact, I read somewhere that inadvertently the ‘no child left behind’ program kind of created the arts cutback situation because funds had to be diverted to sciences & math to insure the program met its goals (I don’t think anyone planned it to work that way).

Heck. President Obama announced a $250 million initiative to train math and science teachers and help meet his goal of pushing America’s students from the middle to the top of the pack in those subjects in the next decade. Obama said the $250 million in public and private investments for his “Educate to Innovate” campaign will help train more than 100,000 teachers and prepare more than 10,000 new educators in the next five years. I am all for that also. Just not at the expense of other curriculum options students could select.

Why do we have to choose one over the other? (I guess that is where I get stuck on this issue)

So. What would I do? (being the unreasonable guy I am)

Use that 250 million to train Curiosity Fulfillment teachers. Create a Curiosity Fund and go get stuff in front of kids. And keep shoving it at them until they find something they gravitate to. The only reason (in my opinion) kids “give up” in school is because they just don’t find anything relevant to them. I am NOT suggesting we should ignore a well rounded education (they do need to know 2 and 2 is 4 and stuff like that) but give them a “hook.”  Something to hold on to. Something that inspires them to want to know more.

There you go – a National Childhood Curiosity Program. Educating to feed Curiosity.