We could be simplistic and say that the arts help young people to stay away from alcohol and drugs and stick to the same rhetoric, but the fact is that practicing music, painting, theater or any artistic branch helps humans develop discipline, responsibility, commitment and a series of cognitive benefits.
It is enormously saddening to see cases like Hojancha, where 42 musical instruments have been stored in a shed for three years and the community is not taking advantage of using them as they could because there is no budget to have a music teacher. We don’t even want to start talking about the fact that they were purchased with public funds.
Offering artistic classes like music lessons is necessary and appropriate in a canton like Hojancha, where there aren’t many places for recreation and entertainment.
A similar situation has occurred in Nosara, where they built a classroom to give music lessons in November of 2013 and are still waiting to be assigned a teacher from the National Music Education System (SINEM- Sistema Nacional de Educacion Musical).
It has been scientifically proven that people who take art classes have better brain performances. This was shown in a study by the University of Toronto, published in Psychological Science magazine, that compared six-year-old children who received art lessons with others who did not.
Those who did receive the workshops had increased cognitive development, in addition to better behavior and social adaptation.
This is from the scientific point of view, but the arts also help young people to learn to manage their time, combined with the discipline generated in order to complete different assignments with quality.
Art is as important as sports, education and spirituality. It is part of a well-rounded individual and it makes us more complete people.
Creativity needs to be stimulated. It can’t be left dormant or be tucked away on a shelf due to lack of planning or indifference from the institutions in charge. It should be a priority and should be invested in so that the arts stop being exclusive activities of the elite class, thereby helping to equalize access to opportunities for everyone who lives here.
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