Arts can help students achieve, too

I admire and endorse Joe Ehrmann's recommendations for a new approach to sports in education ("Athletics as education," Sept. 15), and I would point out that much of what he says is equally true of the arts.

The arts can help bridge "the achievement gap." They promote human rights, diversity, etc., and, when the right coaching is applied, they teach an "other-centered" curriculum. Often in school cultures, however, successful student artists are labeled sissies or weirdos, while successful student athletes are characterized as heroes.

The field of play becomes a metaphor for life's struggles in the language of many teacher-coaches, and 50 percent of the participants are "enemies." Mr. Ehrmann's efforts to modify this language with a new approach to coaching are laudable. Would that we gave an equal amount of attention to the potential for moral, ethical, and civic development in the arts.

Joshua L. Shoemaker, Towson