Sorry if it's too long

Some people think that art is an essential subject for children at school, while others think it is a waste of time.

Discuss both sides and give your opinion.

Write at least 250 words.

While some might argue that having art as a subject at school is of no use to children, others believe that art is an essential school subject. I strongly support the second opinion: art is of high necessity as a school subject. There are two main ideas supporting my opinion. Firstly, art offers countless benefits to both students and society. Secondly, art serves as an essential complementary subject and works to the advantage of the rest of the curriculum.

Art offers numerous benefits to school students. It encourages creativity, which is what drives innovation and improves critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which comes with loads of benefits throughout the child's life, and this can compensate for the suppression of creativity in many other parts of education systems. Furthermore, exposure to art, especially to a variety of genres, also helps strengthen the child's aesthetic awareness and develop emotional intelligence which contributes to overall intellectual development. It also preserves cultural values and creates strong ties between students. From another perspective, art improves the student's teamwork skills which could come in handy later in many stages of life: in school years, university years and employment.

That said, in reality, art is often ignored by schools compared to STEM subjects, and this is due to the fact that art tends to not be necessary for all career paths, in fact not for most of them. But it is simply the opposite; the benefits art brings is as important as those brought by STEM subjects. Yes, academic prioritization should be considered and that's the belief of those who think art is a useless subject, as they think offering art as a mandatory subject will waste the student's time and it would be better to focus on more important academic subjects, STEM subjects for instance, but they missed a really crucial point. In fact, arts works to the advantage of all other parts of school curricula, acts as a complementary subject and largely contributes to curriculum integration. Art can help reduce the stress caused by denser subjects by acting as an emotional outlet and improving the psychological well-being of students as it allows them to unleash their creativity and express their emotions and opinions in a rather creative way, increase cognitive flexibility and as said before, enhance problem-solving skills, which will all come in benefit of other subjects as well. Schools should aim more for holistic development rather than solely focusing on academic development, and art is an ideal option to incorporate into schools for this specific goal.

Nevertheless, schools should make art optional for students who are not interested in art, or those who find it difficult to balance between art as a subject and other relatively more important subjects, as it can't be denied that a good amount of majors and fields do not necessarily require artistic skills, and forcing it into curriculum could negatively affect those students. Instead, schools should provide a wide variety of options like humanities, social sciences, etc... and make the decision of taking this type of subjects up to students and their parents.

In conclusion, art is a perfect complementary subject to incorporate into school curricula, and this could come with loads of developmental and general benefits to both student and society. And when taking a broader look at school systems, art comes in benefit of other parts of the system and gives schools a more holistic approach to development and education. However, the option of taking art as a subject should still be up to children and their parents and exceptions and academic prioritization should be taken into account.

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