This experiment has amazed scientists, who assumed that the introduction of color receptors into male monkey optic nerves would have no effect on brains that had not been genetically programmed to see more than white, black, and grey.

This little scientific breakthrough also makes a nice metaphor for the relationship between access and capacity. Dalton and Sam did not have access to color wavelengths through their optic nerves, but their monkey brains retained the capacity to “see” color once given access. I don’t know if male squirrel monkeys lost the capacity to see color over evolutionary time, or if female squirrel monkeys acquired the capacity to see color through natural selection (what would be the distaff biological advantage of color vision?), but in any case, male monkeys retain an astonishing aptitude for discriminating hues even when they have had no opportunities (for eons) for exercising that capacity.

What are the implications for arts education? A report on National Public Radio station wondered if there was a level playing field preparing students to audition for ChiArts – the Chicago High School for the Arts. Some of our grade schools provide excellent arts education programming. Others provide zilch. Access is clearly inequitable. Schools in poor neighborhoods tend to have the least. Schools that are academically challenged tend to have the least. There is a simple social justice question here of equitable access. The economically and academically advantaged get the goodies. The rest of us do not.  This is arts education apartheid. The need to address this inequity becomes more urgent as 21st century learning increasingly requires the skills developed by the arts: imagining alternative solutions, persistence, design, self-direction, collaboration, expression in multiple media, etc.

So which arts aptitudes are retained even when not nurtured, ready to blossom forth once access gets provided, like Sam’s enthusiasm for recognizing chartreuse and Dalton’s pride in identifying sienna? We really don’t know. We DO know that many, if not MOST Americans believe that they are not creative: “I really can’t sing”, “I can’t draw a lick”, “I’m just not a creative type”.  Anyone working in arts education has heard this all too often– from classroom teachers, principals, and parents. We need to actively counter this disinformation. And we need to generate a lot more information about the mechanics of aesthetic recovery in America. I posit that developing this knowledge is as urgent as finding pathways to national economic recovery – that these two pathways are inextricably entwined.

It is time for us to become color unblind, not just around racial profiling (we need to be able to see race without becoming racists), but around all our diverse, unexplored identities and capacities.

Make a color unblind monkey out of me!

When it comes to our thinking about arts education in our schools, we should remember that many of us grew up with arts education programs we took for granted. The public elementary school I attended had excellent visual art teachers, dedicated instrumental and vocal music teachers, inspired and inspiring theater teachers (I became a professional theater director), and even some dance instruction. All classrooms had pianos, and all my teachers knew how to play them.

But now, when we advocate for arts education for our children in our schools, we have a double challenge: 1) much of the arts education many of us grew up with and took for granted is GONE from our schools, and 2) in a digital age, we must advocate for arts education that has elements we never experienced: video production, podcasts, web design, digital music composition. We must move from nostalgia for the incandescent to advocacy for the florescent and the halogen and the Light Emitting Diode.
This state of affairs positions arts education advocates to encourage schools to build on their enthusiasm for new technologies. Do classroom teachers and students have access to digital cameras? Does the music teacher (if there is one) involve students in music composition? Does the visual arts teacher (if there is one) help students create digital portfolios?

We can also encourage schools to providing training for parents and teachers on arts based applications of new technologies – such as student run workshops on digital composing and digital photography and video editing, ushering in “a new era of light” in arts education, student leadership, and parental involvement.

The incandescent light bulb has long been the cartoon shorthand for a new idea. Will we start seeing long lasting florescent and halogen and LED light bulbs floating above the heads of cartoon characters about to shout “Eureka!”?

What to do about this?

Ask your school’s administration to include your arts teachers more directly in whole school planning. Ask your school’s administration to dedicate some in-school professional development time to your arts teachers explaining the state standards in the arts to your school’s whole faculty. Help develop and implement a cross-school collaboration with another school that includes classroom teachers and arts teachers from both schools. Co-plan and co-implement parent and child arts nights with your arts teachers.

Talk to local businesses, libraries, and cultural institutions about providing free space for exhibitions and performances of work produced by students working with your arts teachers. Talk to local cultural institutions about offering free master classes in the arts to local arts teachers. If you have access to local media, pitch interviews with your arts teachers to print, radio, and television. If you have access to leaders at the district level, explore opportunities with your principal for arts teachers to have their own professional development with other arts teachers across your school district. Talk to your arts teachers about their ideas.

Schools crave parent involvement. Parents participating in any of the above suggestions could be very attractive to school administrations.

Use your parent power! Support your local arts teachers!

Recent local and national clients include:

• Chicago Public Schools’ Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster Program
• Chicago Public Schools’ International Baccalaureate Programme
• Chicago Opera Theater
• Walt Disney Magnet School
• Innovations Alternative High School
• Young Chicago Authors
• Black Ensemble Theater
• Alphonsus Academy and Center for the Arts
• Peoria (IL) Public Schools
• Perley Elementary School in South Bend, Indiana
• University of Maryland Baltimore County
• Urban Arts Partnerships NYC
• Alameda County (CA) Office of Education
• Muse Machine, Dayton, Ohio
• Kaiser Permanente Educational Theater
• Eastern Michigan University

International clients include:

• ArtPlay, Australia
• ArtsSmarts, Canada
• CapeUK
• Habla, Mexico
• Kids’ Own Publishing, Ireland
• New Zealand Association of Arts Educators