(Francisca Villaseca) Biology Department vs. History Department

The play “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” written by Edward Albee situates the reader into this evident aggressive and toxic relationship, interpreted by Martha and George. This married couple are the entire time showing their strong personalities and fighting in front of their young guests, Honey and Nick.

It is curious to go over George’s development during the play, a man who at the beginning seems to be a cold man with intellectual thoughts hidden on alcohol.

Analogy of the play with an article of Arts for education:

http://hechingerreport.org/advocates-for-arts-education-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good/

George is constantly comparing history with science; biology, where he mocks about the chromosomes making a relationship with making a “pure” race.

George: …”a certain type of regulation will be necessary…uh…for the experiment to succeed. A certain number of sperm tubes will have to be cut.

…Which will assure the sterility of the imperfect… the ugly, the stupid… the unfit.

…With this, we will have, in time a race of glorious men.

…I suspect we will not have much music, much painting but we will have a civilization of men, smooth, blond, and right at the middleweight limit.

…a race of scientists and mathematicians.

…There will be a certain loss of liberty I imagine, as a result of this experiment…cultures and races will eventually vanish”.

There are studies related to arts in education which state that it may help students increase their academic results, but it has been lost in application during the years. This is because new cultural forces replaced the customs from the artistically wave European immigrants left in the past. As a result, market forces have pushed arts away.

Contextualizing the above said, in the middle of the 20th century, there was a big impact of arts because of European immigrants. They exported traditions from their cultures and imported arts into the US community and schools.

“Consider schools that need 4 hours of English, 4 of math and 3 of science credits to receive the “standard diploma” – and only 1 credit in speech or art. Computer science and technology courses crowd out arts options among electives…

It isn’t just the arts that are suffering from this focus on vocational training, Greene explained. “Literature, poetry, history, classics and the rest of the humanities are getting hit along with the arts.”

 There is a similarity with the above, where humanities can be left behind because science predominates because it is exact and society is always is searching for explicit results.

The point is that humanities are essential for humans’ development, a sometimes called inexact science, since they give a broader spectrum to our lives.

“Pointing out public health advancements are increasing the life span of Americans, O’Hare asked: Why prolong life if it’s not worth living? That’s what the arts do. They make life worth living. Even if your math scores don’t go up.”