Arts courses should be a more compulsory requirement in schools—and no, I’m not just saying this as a theater kid. I genuinely mean it. 

 

I wasn’t what you’d call an “artistic” person. Drawing felt—and still is—very foreign to me, and taking aesthetic photos or dancing were things I never gave much thought to either. Writing was really the only thing keeping the creative side of me going, and yet I always just mainly attributed that to my proficiency in English. I thought I was a doomed STEM student by soul.

 

But then I discovered theater.

 

To take Director’s Craft, I had to take the prerequisite of grade 11 Drama. I never thought I’d be confident enough to be constantly on stage performing for others, but simply hoping to experience the former course, I pushed through. Drama taught me better public speaking skills in one semester alone than all the previous school years of my life. Presentations in other courses stopped being so much of a hassle because of what I had learned through an arts course. My social skills skyrocketed as I always had to be communicating with classmates to improve the performances. If not to learn acting, then I still would’ve continued to stay in this course for what good it’s done in other aspects of my skill set.

 

It’s a lot of work, but arts classes can also be a “rest” period amidst all the math and science. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to put in the effort for these art courses. For some, it may even be double the effort, but these classes are always done so differently from “normal” settings to be a breath of fresh air in the day.

 

Sometimes you can walk around school and find the photography kids working in multiple places. In the drama room, there are no desks students are forced to sit at. These types of courses give a much more “relaxed” environment but you’re still working. Time management doesn’t change regardless if it’s perfecting a musical piece or figuring out chemistry problems.

 

In general, arts allows one to approach problems differently. Yes, there could still be math and such involved, but solving how to fix a painting and how to fix your messed up solution of the car going negative two hundred hours per meter^2 are two entirely different lines of thinking. You have to be able to apply yourself in many different situations in life, and arts courses could tremendously help unlock that skill for creativity.

 

The current requirement to graduate high school is only one arts course in any of the four years, but I think we could bump that number up to two or maybe three. Grade 9/10 courses don’t really require hard prerequisites yet so you could take those years to figure out what art form you’d like to pursue. Then, grade 11 could hone that skill further, and if you’d like to focus on other subjects and take those sweet spares in grade 12, then no worries! You’ve completed your requirements to graduate already!

 

While I also understand that the arts may not be for everyone, it wouldn’t hurt to just try it out, no? If it doesn’t stick, oh well, continue on without arts in post-secondary. If it does, well congratulations! You’ve found a new skill to hone and new experiences to help better yourself!

 

Now this one article made by a 12th grader won’t change anything, but it’d be cool to see what others would discover about themselves when—perhaps painfully—required by the Ontario Secondary School curriculum.

 

All it takes is a little push.