Kurt Vonnegut on Art in Public Schools
Sep 11, 2005
Interviewer: You are an artist, I mean you have incorporated drawings in your own books; How important has art been to your work?
Kurt Vonnegut: Well its a perfectly agreeable innocent thing to do and it's a way of being human.
What I hate about public school systems that cut out the arts because they're not a way to make a living - it is such a human thing to do and it is the experience of becoming - if you make something that wasn't in the universe before.
And that feels so good to human beings and to cheat kids out of that- is criminal. Everybody should be painting now, or drawing, or whatever, just as they should be singing & taking walks, or falling in love, or whatever - it's so human, and not to teach kids how to do this is to cheat them, terribly.
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I wrote this transcript after being really moved by this particular segment in a pretty good interview done on NPR. You can listen to the entire interview here.
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My own minor observation... I find the question posed by the interviewer to be a rather poor choice of words. The question seems to suppose that Vonnegut's drawings used in his books are art, but that the books themselves aren't art.
It Reminds me of a comment which often drove my friend Bruno crazy in college. He was a photo major, but he also loved to draw. When people would stop by our dorm room (which doubled as a large art studio) and see his drawings, they'd say, "oh, so you also do art, how nice." Presupposing that photography isn't art.
It's funny how often what people are exposed to as children remains with them throughout life. In most American schools, "art class" means you're going to play with paint, and maybe study paintings. Writing, another form of art, is tought in "English class", while music & song , yet other forms of art, are tought in "band / chorus / music class(es)." All the while, the idea that these are all art forms are lost on the kids - most of whom are pushed by their teachers, parents, and society (in general), to treat these courses as chores - a task on a check list that must be completed with all of the other requirements in order to move on to the next list - with the ultimate goal: finding a trade.
It really urks me when I go to museums (anywhere around the world) and can easily pick out the American families. They're usually the ones with the least appreciation for what they're looking at, and I frequently get the impression that their being in the museum is just one more thing to check off the list, one more thing to talk about with their friends back home - often using it as a gauge of how wonderful they are as parents, exposing their kids to "culture." The parents are often uncomfortable explaining to their children what is beautiful about an image of a naked man or woman, as our puritan society seeks to brandish any images of sexuality. While at the same time when the children show excitement about a particular piece, they are hurried along, not allowed to simply enjoy the stimulation caused by another human being's vision. Why? "Because we paid to come into this museum; we're going to get our money's worth - and see every damn thing they got in here - and still make it to our dinner reservations on time!"
My highschool, which had good funding for arts programs, never understood the concept of embracing all forms of art under one general umbrella. Photography and cinema (OK, T.V.) were administered by the technology department - a department who's courses were reserved for students who otherwise would have dropped out, but were given "vocational skills" such as car repair. I for one was strongly advised not to take photography, or TV while in high school because I was an "honors student" and wasn't supposed to waste my time there. I'm glad that my intuition (which often got/gets me in trouble) even at a young age, told me to question everything - especially when listening to authority figures.
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