Most people understand the far-reaching negative consequences created by
high rates of verbal illiteracy, but many of those same people are
completely blind to the enormous impact that visually illiteracy also
has on our lives. Think about it. Of all our senses, our sense of sight
is always on, full blast, unless we have a visual impairment. We're able
to ignore or block out sounds, tastes, and touch when necessary, but
our brains are constantly recording, filing, sorting, filtering, and
responding to visual stimuli (and remixing and replaying much of it
while we sleep). As an art teacher for mostly non-art majors at the
University of Michigan, I've found that when my students discover that
they have the capacity for visual literacy, it's like giving sight back
to the blind. It doesn't change one's intelligence, per se, but it
removes the blindfolds on their imaginative capabilities. In short, they
can finally "see," and have brand new access to their "inner vision" as
well.
Because we haven't measured rates of visual literacy,
we've probably been suffering for a long time without knowing it. Worst
of all, we're passing on our visual illiteracy, and all of the ills that
come with it, directly to our children by offering minimal or zero arts
programming in our public schools. Consider this: In the BEST public
schools in the country, kids only get about 50 minutes of art per week.
And of that 50 minutes a relatively small portion of the time is
actually spent in the creative/imaginative mode. In the worst schools,
it has been years since they've had any art programs whatsoever.
In
the same way that verbal literacy leads to the development of
higher-level cognitive skills, learning to draw, paint and sculpt leads
to the development of higher levels of creativity and
imagination--attributes that are harder to quantify, but no less
essential to our well-being. Seeing yourself as a creative being,
rather than a consumer of someone else's creativity, is crucial to one's
self-esteem and self-identity. Being the originator of an idea, rather
than the recipient of someone else's ideas, can't help but make you feel
more positive about yourself, and about your future possibilities.
Without creative outlets, lack of self-confidence and feelings of
inadequacy -- of "ordinariness" -- can take over.
FestiFools may not be
the cure I alluded to earlier, but it can certainly act as a litmus test
for whether or not a community functions better,(i.e. is happier), as a
result of being exposed to this visually stimulating and, hopefully,
more visually literate set of experiences.