Describing our culture as “entertaining itself to death,” is a wonderful phrase that comes from Ken Myers, host of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, a bastion of thoughtfulness in a culture which has all too little of it in evidence. I find the expression sadly descriptive of the attitude today many people take toward things like the arts, the subject of history, and education in general–things that warrant, indeed require deeper contemplation.

It’s easy to assume that art reaches us where we are, that we meet it on our terms, and that the intentions of the artist are right there on the surface ready for us to process in a quick moment. While some pieces grab us by the lapels have their way with us, appreciating most art demands that we be informed and engaged. Absent this, chances are we will come away empty-handed.  I’m convinced that not bothering to understand this is in large part why so many people don’t “get” the arts and why they’re consequently considered a dispensable frill by school boards and taxpayers from East to West.

Interacting with and appreciating art is not a passive experience in any way, even though it may often look that way to an outsider observer. Taking in a painting, play, or concerto requires a level of thought not immediately evident, and sadly one that is apparently less regarded as worth the effort in our entertainment-driven culture.

I once gave a talk to a group of history teachers about what it takes on the part of the teacher to help students develop a passion for history. In the course of the talk I made the remark that what we do, as history teachers, ought not to be thought of as entertainment. Afterward at a coffee break one of the teachers came up to me and said, “You’re wrong. What we do IS entertainment.” I was initially willing to hope that he was maybe speaking in a best-case-scenario kind of way, but I came to realize that he really wasn’t. To hear a teacher devalue our material and mission so completely was thoroughly demoralizing. I hope most people concerned with education don’t share his opinion.