Less Art for More Science

Few disagree on an urgent need to increase America’s science and math proficiency in order to compete in our fast paced world. But less art?

Sadly, the arts become an easy target when budgets get slashed. Yet both multi-dimensional advances of art along with empirical rigor of science both challenge and transform high performing minds. Like two oars in a boat, if art is pulled from learning programs, science loses its ability to move people forward.

Whether it’s the design of tall ships or treatment of tropical diseases, science offers the mind of innovations for discovery of a finer world. Art walks the process of science into  symmetry, light, gravity and friction of a cultural community. Real change comes as consequence of forging the arts and sciences into tools for innovation and progressive solutions to real world problems.

Together arts and science offer beauty and invention through the mysteries and color of a fast changing world. The world still waiting to be discovered is wider than theater, art, music, drama and film and deeper that measurement, money or math solutions.

The problem of math deficiency cannot be solved by cutting funds from the arts, just as finer sailing doesn’t follow from removing one oar from the boat. While it may be tempting to balance a budget by cutting the arts, the consequences will reconfigure a communities collective intelligence to move forward.

Instead, why not fuse art and science into tools for solving real world problems that beckon  lifelong learning in both. It makes sense if you consider how both sides of the human brain synchronize to invent solutions for pressing problems.

No community can be excellent without transforming itself artistically and mathematically, and winning communities develop mastery practices from both sides of the brain. How so?

1. Question with two feet so that innovative solutions draw from both arts and sciences. Ask for example:

• How has technology changed our world and culture? Can you see that innovative solutions might include designing a TV show, for example,  to illustrate how the science of technology changes the art of cultures?

2. Target both arts and sciences to set goals that engage imagination and at the same time draw from numerical data to support outcomes.  For example:

• Apply solutions to improve and track new research practices at work, and
• Identify real workplace problems solved with shared ethical solutions.

3. Expect criteria to fuse arts and sciences by listing rubrics that will measure both. You might require your project, for example, to show:

• Tone that allows all to speak and feel heard.
• Research contributions from 3 experts in a field.
• Five multiple intelligences expressed and evident in the outcomes.
• Opposing views that support hard data on both sides of the issue
• Illustrations that well respected artists would praise.

4. Move innovative ideas into inventions that draw from multiple intelligences - as these roll out art and science capabilities on both sides of the brain. How so?

• Human brains work more efficiently when you lead with personal strengths, from both arts and science.
• When hook new skills onto their existing art and science proclivities, they make innovative connections across both as Einstein did.

Can you see why chopping the arts out of programs cuts off some people who would lead with strengths in the arts, while ignoring science eliminates others? Even gender brain differences suggest an urgent need for both as tools for growth.

5. Reflect on where to from here if a fused arts and science invention much like the video here about a man with two brains, shows both arts and science in action.

Would you agree, that neither arts alone, nor science alone can generate or carry life changing practices from different brain areas?

Integration of art and science is key to MITA Brain Based learning and leading. How so?

We engage smart skills for successful solutions and these tend to fuse together art and science  through multiple segues into different parts of brain. The result? More brainpower across differences in culture, careers and communities.

My lifetime research across many countries and careers, shows how both sides of the human brain engage more through active integration of arts and science. That’s why it saddens me to see art cut from programs, or science neglected in order to trim budgets or save time. Rather than chop eith one, let’s renew both art and science with the brain in mind. Sound like a possibility to make us all richer?