Goodbye Art, Music, P.E.
Children are being pulled out of "specials" or "electives" like art, music, and P.E. to prepare for testing, if they are identified as at risk of failing the exams, often without parents knowing.
In addition to removing the electives from their day, this practice creates a tiered social system. It creates an awareness among students of "smart kids" versus "dumb kids". Social experiments reveal that when you tell a group that they are smarter or better than another, that group will perform better on tests than predicted. Labelling children in this manner can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All courses, including art, music, and P.E., now require End of Course exams. This requirement is shaping the nature of these courses, turning them more into theory courses, than actual practice. Interestingly, children will be responsible for these exams whether they have been allowed to attend these courses or not. Removing the last creative components from a child's school day leaves them with no outlet for creative energy, or breaks in their academic focus. Numerous studies have identified the arts and music as critical building blocks in a child's development. These building blocks include the development of fine motor skills, language skills relating to shapes, color, and expression of feelings, mathematical relationships as expressed through music and rhythm, creative thought and innovation, and social skills (read more about these connections here). Physical education enables kinesthetic learners to perform in the classroom, while also establishing the love and pattern for an active lifestyle, which is critical for longterm health.
By removing these components from their day, and compounding it with tests that scrutinize and criticize their abilities, children learn to hate school, instead of to love learning.