Sarah Tucker: Revaluing the Three Arts: Why the Future of Education Depends on What We Once Called “Extras”

Sarah Tucker

There comes a point in life when you realise two things.

First, that you have spent an impressive number of years becoming highly competent at things you were told mattered.

Second, that none of those things include tap dancing.

And yet here we are.

Somewhere between screens, meetings, and the quiet hum of optimisation, I found myself learning to tap dance (which is, incidentally, like writing with your feet, only louder and far less compatible with checking an iPhone), attempting figurative sculpture (some pieces are recognisably human; others could reasonably be mistaken for voodoo dolls), and practising piano with the determination of someone who suspects they may be several decades late to the correct curriculum.

I am, for reasons that would likely interest both Jung and Freud, particularly good at backs, bottoms, and feet.

Because it turns out that stepping away from the screen is not a break from thinking. It is a return to it.

Which brings us to the system we built.

We have built an education system that worships what can be counted.

Numbers. Metrics. Outputs. Grades. Salaries. Lines of code. Binary logic 0 and 1, yes or no, right or wrong. The world has become increasingly optimised, patterned, and predictable. Algorithms now shape not only our technologies, but our thinking. We reward those who can operate within systems, not those who can transform them.

And yet, quietly, persistently, something keeps pulling us back.

People return to music after burnout.

They rediscover painting after breakdown.

They sign up for drama classes in their forties, searching for something they cannot name only feel.

Why?

Because the very things we have sidelined drama, art, and music are not luxuries. They are not “enrichment.” They are not hobbies to be revisited once the “real work” is done.

They are, in fact, the work we forgot to value.

As Friedrich Nietzsche once observed, “We have art in order not to die of the truth.”

The Narrowing of Intelligence

Modern education has mistaken precision for intelligence.

We have trained generations to operate within defined systems: solve the equation, follow the code, optimise the output. Even creativity has been boxed into productivity design thinking frameworks, content pipelines, monetisation strategies.

But here is the flaw: systems reward pattern recognition, not pattern disruption.

Creatives, however, do the opposite.

They break patterns.

They interrupt expectations.

They introduce ambiguity where certainty once ruled.

This is not inefficiency. It is evolution.

If education continues to prioritise only what can be measured, it will produce individuals who are highly capable within systems but incapable of transforming them.

And transformation is precisely what this century demands.

Carl Jung put it more starkly: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Drama: The Discipline of Perspective

Drama is often misunderstood as performance. In reality, it is the study of perspective.
To act is to inhabit another mind. Another body. Another truth.

It requires listening not the passive kind, but an active, responsive listening where meaning is co-created in real time. You cannot simply wait for your turn to speak; you must understand the intention behind the words, the emotion beneath them, the silence between them.

We live in a culture of “I am right, you are wrong.” Debate has replaced dialogue. Positions have replaced curiosity.

But fixed thinking is not intelligence. It is stagnation.

Drama trains the opposite. It teaches cognitive flexibility, the ability to hold multiple viewpoints simultaneously; embodied confidence, where posture, voice, and presence are not abstract but practiced; emotional literacy, understanding not just what people say, but what they feel; and
adaptive communication, responding rather than reacting.

Neurologically, drama engages mirror neurons, allowing individuals to simulate and understand others’ experiences. It strengthens pathways associated with empathy, regulation, and social cognition.

In simpler terms: it makes us better humans.

If taught properly, drama could fundamentally reshape leadership, politics, and public discourse. It would produce individuals who do not simply argue but understand.

Music: The Intelligence of Listening

If drama teaches us to see differently, music teaches us to hear.

Not just sound but pattern, vibration, and resonance.

Music operates beyond language. It bypasses the analytical mind and speaks directly to the nervous system. Rhythm regulates the body. Melody evokes emotion. Harmony teaches balance between independence and integration.

From a scientific perspective, music enhances neuroplasticity by strengthening connections across brain regions, improves memory and pattern recognition, regulates the autonomic nervous system reducing stress and anxiety, and develops temporal awareness the ability to understand timing, pacing, and flow.

But perhaps most importantly, music teaches us to listen.

Not to respond. Not to correct. Not to dominate.

Just to listen.

And yet, like everything else, music has been aggressively monetised. The industry rewards output over authenticity, virality over depth. Many who enter music for expression find themselves chasing metrics streams, views, algorithms until the original joy becomes diluted.

Because that feeling was never about the product.

It was about the process.

Which, incidentally, is how one ends up learning the Lucy and Linus theme from Charlie Brown and pieces from La La Land on a keyboard bought slightly later than ideal but exactly when needed.

Education must reclaim music not as a pathway to performance, but as a practice of presence.

Art: Thinking Beyond Words

Words are powerful but they are limited.

They categorise, define, and constrain. They attempt to fix meaning into something stable. But much of human experience cannot be contained in language.

This is where visual art becomes essential.

Before we learn to speak, we see. Before we write, we draw. The brain processes images faster than text, and visual information activates broader neural networks than verbal communication alone.

Art allows us to think in forms that words cannot reach.

Colour influences mood and cognition.

Shape and space affect perception and interpretation.

Texture and material engage sensory awareness.

Scientific studies show that engaging in visual art reduces cortisol levels, improves focus, and enhances problem solving abilities. It activates the default mode network the part of the brain associated with imagination and introspection.

In other words, it gives us access to ideas that do not yet have names.

Innovation begins in that space.

Not in the known but in the not yet formed.

The Mental Health Crisis We Created

We now face a growing mental health crisis, particularly in midlife.

People reach a point where the systems they have mastered no longer fulfil them. They feel disconnected, constrained, and uncertain.

But the truth is simpler.

The child was never lost.

It was suppressed.

Children naturally engage in drama, art, and music. They explore, experiment, and express without fear of judgment or monetisation. But as they move through education, these instincts are gradually deprioritised in favour of measurable achievement.

By adulthood, many have lost access to these modes of expression entirely.

And so they return later, often desperately trying to reconnect with something that should never have been removed.

If we integrated the arts properly into education not as optional extras, but as core disciplines we would not need to “recover” ourselves later.

We would never have lost ourselves in the first place.

Why Entrepreneurs Need the Arts

But the most successful ones are not those who solve existing problems more efficiently. They are the ones who see problems differently altogether.

This requires pattern recognition numbers and pattern disruption creativity.

Without the second, the first becomes optimisation not innovation.

Drama enables entrepreneurs to understand users, customers, and stakeholders from multiple perspectives. It builds communication skills that go beyond pitch decks and presentations.

Music develops timing, intuition, and the ability to sense shifts essential in navigating uncertainty.

Art fosters vision. It allows entrepreneurs to conceptualise what does not yet exist and communicate it in ways that resonate beyond logic.

In a world saturated with data, the competitive advantage is no longer information.

It is interpretation.

And interpretation is an art.

Breaking the Pattern

We are at a point of transition.

Those who remain fixed in their thinking who rely solely on established systems, rigid logic, and narrow definitions of intelligence will struggle.

Not because they lack ability.

But because the world is changing faster than their frameworks.

The future belongs to those who can move between structure and freedom. Between analysis and intuition. Between numbers and meaning.

Education must reflect this.

It must stop treating drama, art, and music as secondary.

They are not breaks from learning.

They are learning.

A New Valuation

To revalue the arts, we must change how we define value itself.

Not just economic output but human capability.

Not just what can be measured but what can be experienced.

Not just productivity but possibility.

Drama, art, and music do not reject words and numbers.

They transcend them.

And in doing so, they expand what it means to be intelligent, capable, and fully human.

We had to choose. The system held.

A science, maths, and English too;

One art permitted, neatly felled

As though expression must be few.

And now, beyond the old perhaps,
I take the arts I once denied.

No Oscar came. (A clerical lapse.)

But something else did.

A return.

A place where thinking is not only done in words and numbers, but in rhythm, in form, in movement. Where ideas are not just solved, but explored. Where value is not only measured, but felt.

Entrepreneurs, in particular, should pay attention.

Because the question is no longer whether we can afford to prioritise the arts.

It is whether we can afford not to.

And if, along the way, you find yourself tapping loudly in a room, building slightly unnerving sculptures, or learning a piece of music you suspect you should have started years ago

You are not behind.

You are, finally, on syllabus.