Art is more than just decoration. It's a way of seeing the world, of learning to think, of communicating. Art engages us through a different door than the written or spoken word. It helps us to see and envision the world and the challenges we face in more open, less prescribed ways, which also fosters more creative problem solving. Art provides a way for us to think and communicate differently than simple discussion or debate.

And yet, the arts are not considered core parts of the education curriculum, and are often perceived as add-ons, a fun subject, an elective for those who are interested in it, available only when and if the resources are available.

We live in a media rich culture. We are saturated by visual images, yet we are not teaching students to really see these images, to analyze them, to make connections between them and other parts of our world or their lives. Visual art is an important way to teach visual literacy.

Besides, not everyone learns in the same ways. School is so often focused on the written and spoken word, that students who are more visual learners and thinkers, or kinesthetic learners, or students who are still learning English, can often feel left behind, and may feel like they are at a disadvantage in communicating their rich and complex thoughts.

Arts integration in the curriculum, facilitated by thoughtful, skilled teachers, helps level the playing field, and provides these and other students an opportunity to participate, and contribute their strengths and insights to the discourse. It also encourages students who don't feel strong or experienced in this medium to stretch these muscles.

I am the director of youTHink, an education program that uses art to engage students in contemporary issues analysis and community involvement. Often, when teachers hear about my work, they immediately want to connect me with their "artistic" students. Although it's my pleasure to meet and support these students, arts education is for all students, it builds critical skills and perspective that are necessary to every student's development.

Would we ever consider only offering reading to students who loved it?

Elliot Eisner, Professor of Education and Art at Stanford University, and author of The Arts and the Creation of Mind, articulates the importance of the arts in strengthening cognitive functioning.

1) Art helps us learn to notice the world. It inspires us to observe things around us in new ways.

2) The arts give us permission to use our imaginations to envision new possibilities. "The arts . enable us to step into the shoes of others and to experience vicariously what we have not experienced directly." (p. 10)

3) Art fosters the ability to "tolerate ambiguity, to explore what is uncertain." (p. 10)

4) The arts provide a way to capture elusive ideas and experiences, so we can examine them more closely. These ideas are more enduring and far-reaching through the arts than through thinking and conversation.

These functions are not simply for pleasure and well-roundedness, they are critical life skills for effective and mindful global citizenship. I have also learned from youTHink that art provides a vehicle to learn what is important to students, to understand how they see the world and how it affects them.

Annie, a 4th grader, used art to teach others about the extinction of the Dodo bird, and which animals will be next if we don't care for them and their habitats.

Manuel, a 12th grader at an urban high school, rarely participates in class. He memorialized a friend who was killed in a drive-by shooting through art, asking difficult questions about the causes and solutions for urban violence.

Lupe, a 16-year-old mom at a continuation school, created art to tell the story of her father's repeated crossings of the border from Mexico and arrests along the way, in pursuit of a better life for his family.

youTHink offers lessons directly to 4th - 12th grade classes, at no charge to public schools. These lessons, often in Language Arts or Social Studies classes, use social commentary art to invite students to talk about their worlds as they see them. Each student is asked to create a piece of art of their own, identifying an issue of importance to them.

Through their art and artist statements, students share their concerns with their classmates, and through live and on-line exhibits with the broader community, about a wide and powerful range of issues. From homelessness to teen suicide, from urban violence to pollution, from the war in Iraq to the debate over driver's licenses for undocumented Californians, students have keen perceptions of the world around them. Unfortunately, they also have few opportunities to express them, and limited tools at their disposal to address them.

Programs like youTHink are a testament to the student appetite to be heard, to the many important and powerful messages they have to share, and to the power of art to engage diverse students and serve as a tool for social change. As people concerned about education, let us commit to ensuring that the arts are an integral part of education, for the benefit of all students, and our society as a whole.

Gun Problems - Kids Shooting Themselves




The topic I chose was kids shooting themselves accidentally. They shoot themselves because their parents have a gun for protection and they go into their room and find it. Then they use it to supposedly play until one kid accidentally shoots another. The tape at the end of the gun is smoke and the skull on the guy means he's dead. I can be safer by not going near guns. Parents could also lock them up or put a built in code to fire them.

Luis G.
Clarendon Elementary School, San Francisco

Drinking & Driving





On my box I put a car about to run a stoplight while a kid is crossing the street. I chose this issue because someone in my family died from another person hitting him straight on and that person was drunk.

Text on project reads: "Don't drink and drive, the life you take may not be your own."

Caitlin S.
7th Grade
Ralston Middle School, Belmont

Too Many Homeless on the Street




My social issue is homelessness. This issue is important to me because there are too many homeless people today on the street and if this keeps happening we'll all end up there. So for my project I made a mini- shopping cart all battered to represent all the homeless people out there. Then I made a building and a sleeping bag. We could help this by making apartments less expensive and helping people out when they ask for money instead of selfishly passing them by.

Krystal C.
8th Grade
Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley

Teen Suicide





The issue that I chose is teen suicide. I chose this topic because I believe that it is a social problem that severely affects our society today. It is important to me because I know people that have been depressed and bordering on suicidal. I want to represent how many kids attempt suicide on my box. I showed a young girl crying with black wings and cut wrists. The black wings represent how she did not die naturally, but from suicide. The cuts on her wrists represent her self-mutilation, and her attempts to mend her emotional pain by physically hurting herself. The tears on her cheeks stand for the sadness and hurt that built up to her suicide. I can personally affect this issue by letting those I know to be suicidal how much I love them and how devastated I would be if they were gone. My behavior contributes to the solution because if I show that I care about that person they might possibly be less likely to commit suicide or hurt themselves because they know someone else cares.

Giana C.
8th Grade
Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley

The American Dream





I did this because I wanted to show the ugly side of life. Not all girls are skinny or what society thinks is beautiful. I find it disgusting how this girl has lost all self-esteem and stooped down to letting herself fall victim to this highly contagious disease. I made her face blank to show that it could be any girl in the room, whether it be the cheerleader or the class clown. Hopefully the image of this disease raises some awareness on how this disease is more common than you think and how disgusting the media exploits these images on what beauty is.

Melissa M.
11th Grade
Alameda High School, Alameda

Gang Wars








My project is about gang wars and how innocent people can be affected. I chose this topic because I wanted to make people see how dangerous gangs can be. I drew a small street in the background with blood splattered on the floor. I also used tombstone to represent death in each gang and I made one extra tombstones to represent an innocent by-stander. The one thing I can do is to have more after school programs for kids, so that they wouldn't be involve in gangs and all of the things that could force them into a bad route.

Jann L.
Balboa High School, San Francicso


Shifra Teitelbaum is the Director of youTHink, a program of the Zimmer Children's Museum and the Center for American Studies and Culture. youTHink's main office is in Los Angeles, with a regional office in San Francisco. For more information visit http://www.youthink.org.