Why is art important in secondary school?

A student ready for school

Education is such that it does not pay off in short term but in the long run, you will reap its fruits if carefully undertaken. Most students do not have a clear vision of what they want to be and the related course they have to pursue to pave way for their future professions. This problem has caused many to complete but hopeless because their decision was based on an influence that negatively affected them. Parents who are not well-educated are mostly fond of leaving their wards to do what they think is right in school without proper consultation from those who have the know-how.

My assignment in this article is to make Junior High School leavers, parents, and guardians to be aware of the fact that reading Visual Arts in school does not render a student block-headed. Students who do not research to have knowledge about the various courses offered in secondary school end up choosing courses that do not benefit them or even tend to be a hindrance sometimes. Talking about an art course in this article, I am referring to Visual Art particularly. To make it easier for you to comprehend this piece, I have organized my supporting facts below:

• It provides the basics to wonderful professions: Think of the commercial photographers, designers, web designers, video producers, and animators among others you can imagine have in one way or the other background in Visual Art in the second cycle institutions. People sometimes do not know what they say but, unfortunately, the advice of such people is what others are strongly convinced about. If you are a student looking forward to becoming any of the above-mentioned professionals, do well to read Visual Art in SHS and ignore the ill talk of people who do not even understand what they talk about. Remember that these people will not bear your troubles with you when they fall on you like rain so you have the power to ignore them now. People say that visual art students are lazy and not smart but you too research to know more about what you are doing for you not be tossed by every wind of deception that blows.

Photography is a wonderful profession

• Opportunity to start earning in school: The era in which we are now is not a matter of getting degrees upon degrees but the usefulness of the knowledge acquired in school is what matters to society. With all seriousness and readiness attached to the study of art, you can learn skills like designing greeting cards, printing shirts, painting, and a whole lot that you can start a business even while in school. When we were in school, I had a friend who designs birthday cards for his colleagues that order them and he charges not less than Ghcedis 10 per design just with his colored pens and pencils with the support being A4 sheet. After which he laminates the card to make it permanent. Another friend of mine prints shirts with just the stencil and screen printing method we were taught then and he does it with precision too.

A design he made recently for a naming ceremony with just simple printing methods

• Art brightens your thinking faculty: Acquisition of knowledge and promoting the thinking of individuals to the benefit of the community is the sole aim of education and art as a program of study has this aim as well. Portrait artists, for instance, have to think and even calculate with blocks or graphs with measurements how to put an image on a 2D surface to look real and exact. Where from the deception that art students are not useful? If it were so, who prints clothes and designs them for us to cover our nakedness, illustrations for children's books, tv and radio advertisements, packaging and branding of manufactured products?

Some professions or careers for a student who studies art:

• Packaging
• Illustration
• Animation
• Photography
• Videography
• Web Design
• Branding
• Painting and sculpture
• Metal art
• Publishing studies
• Ceramics

Any student with Visual Art background can major in any of these professions and even though students with different backgrounds are also sometimes accepted, art students make great success because they have the basics.

Design and art are of important courses that without them life would be difficult because the problems solved by art and design are everyday problems. For instance, for more than decades, the people of Agbozume, Kumasi, Denu, Akatsi, Kpando, Ho, and other areas have been weaving traditional kente and the business is still ongoing. Even as science and technology have evolved to make some of the designs of these traditional clothes, the traditional original ones have more value than the digitally printed ones because they require more energy, knowledge, expertise, and effort.

 In all, never undermine a course you do not know about but rather inquire about it and if you find it to be so then proceed but know for sure that Art is important in everyday life hence the inevitable saying "Art is life."

Before you go, be aware that in every company, the services of photographers, and designers among others are needed very much, and for this reason, you must know that art and design are important.