At the Do-Re-Mi Family Club children take part in arts and crafts activities.

WATCHING her 11-year-old daughter Htoo Eaindra Wai playing the violin, Daw Tin Moe Wai says she wants her daughter to learn to be creative even if she does not turn out to be a successful artist or musician when she grows up.

She enrolled her daughter in painting classes at age 4 and violin classes a year after that.

The 11-year-old took classes at home for four years and is now advancing her skills at the Gitameit music school. She has also been trained in vocal technique for the past year and a half.

Art education is not given priority in Myanmar’s government schools. Some of the schools give lessons in drawing or painting, but the focus is on winning competitions rather than on the child’s effort.

“I think arts education is very weak in the schools here. Some schools give art lessons but the teaching method is a little bit pushy. I like my daughter’s art teachers. They know how to polish the child’s creativity without putting any pressure on the child,” Daw Tin Moe Wai says.

The benefits of developing creativity in a child are little publicised here, so few parents seek out private art and music classes for their children. The number of schools offering such classes in Yangon can be counted on two hands.
As art education awareness is still weak among Myanmar parents, only a handful of parents encourage their children to study arts.

Parents who do enroll their children in extra-curricular activities usually prefer to send them to language schools and computer classes, rather than piano or painting classes, as there is a perception that these will be useless to them later in life.

“People say art education helps develop creativity in a child. For me, it is more. It is fun, while at the same time it improves the child’s motivation, problem-solving skills and confidence,” says Yumi Hasegawa, principal of Do-Re-Mi Family Club, a private arts and music school for very young children.

“Children never do what they are asked so we cannot push them by saying music is fun, learn it. Or arts and crafts is fun, do it. Only when we show them that it is fun are they eager to learn more and actually ask us to teach them,” she says.
Private art teacher U Mg Mg Thein says even parents who bring their children to his classes understand little about the benefits of art education.

“When parents bring their children to my art classes they tell me that their child can’t draw well in science or can’t draw maps in geography. Their understanding is very limited so I have to explain to them that the benefits of art education are richer than that,” he says.

Child psychologist Dr Sjoukje Zijlstra agrees with U Mg Mg Thein. “Children cannot express themselves in words until their language skills are fully developed, so art provides them the opportunity to express themselves,” she says.

“It also fosters creativity and offers them the opportunity to explore their emotions.”

Parents like Ma May Moe Thu may want to send their children to art classes, but because they live outside of major cities like Yangon and Mandalay, there are no classes for them.

“I would prefer my children to paint rather than play video games. I know that art helps children develop their ideas and critical thinking, but I can’t send them to art classes as they aren’t living in Yangon. So I just try to buy my children as many drawing and story books as I can,” she says.

Yumi Hasegawa says that in her native Japan a high emphasis is placed on nurturing a child’s creativity as part of their overall development.

“In Japan, children in nursery school only do arts and crafts and listen to storytelling. When they accomplish this, they can learn anything,” she says.
Dr Zijlstra agrees. “Art education can start as soon as a child starts showing the first signs of creativity.”

But it is never too late to start she says. “The impact of art at any stage of a person’s life increases their confidence.”

Art can also have a beneficial effect on children with behavioural problems, Dr Zijlstra says.

“Art promotes life enhancing changes in the people.”

Daw Tin Moe Wai says she can already see the benefits in her own daughter. “By engaging in art since early childhood, she has learnt to be more disciplined and systematic in her approach to other areas of her life,” she says.
“Art is something you do on your own, so through art the child also learns to be independent.

“Now she is 11 and I have never had to discipline her firmly. I don’t need to push her to study; she does it herself. And through singing in a choir she has learnt about teamwork and developed her problem-solving skills,” Daw Tin Moe Wai says.

But what does her daughter think?

“Some of my friends want to take art classes but their parents won’t allow them,” the 11-year-old says.

“I don’t miss out on any schoolwork because I go to art classes. Because I am allowed to do what I enjoy, I do not resent my schoolwork,” she says.

But for the moment at least, sending their children to art classes is a luxury many parents cannot afford.

“We cannot blame some parents for not giving their children the chance to learn through art because if they have to struggle just to get by from day to day, they cannot send their kids to private art schools,” Yumi Hasegawa says.

But for Daw Tin Moe Wai there is no excuse. “The way I see it, parents here just focus on the basic education of their children and neglect everything else. When I started giving my child art lessons, my parents were firmly against it, saying that it would lead her to neglect her schoolwork.”

She says the strength of her convictions allowed her to stand up to her detractors, who were suggesting she was somehow damaging her child.
“For me, if a person only does their school lessons and has no chance to try anything else, it is a life not worth living. Living with art is much more enjoyable. It is easy to learn technical skills, but a child needs a creative mind to do well in everything. That’s why I let my daughter study art and music from an early age,” Daw Tin Moe Wai says.

Dr Zijlstra agrees with art education specialist Manuel Barkan, who in his book A Foundation for Art Education says: “Art education cannot limit attention to the artistic product alone but must view the arts as a process of human action and behavioral development.”

“Unlike art for art’s sake, which focuses on the finished piece,” Dr Zijlstra says, “art therapy focuses on the process of creation itself. Art therapists believe that the act of making a piece of art triggers internal activity that contributes to physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.”