Gwinnett Buzz

The Gwinnett Buzz would like to congratulate Aimée Burgamy, an art teacher at Trickum Middle School, for being named Gwinnett County Schools Teacher of the Year.

I do not want to rain on anyone’s parade but I must briefly comment on Ms. Burgamy’s advocacy of  “making arts education a mandatory part of the state’s core curriculum.”  Let me be clear, though I am an engineer and have a degree in finance, hardly artistic fields, I received extensive arts education in high school as a member of the Central Gwinnett band.  Though there may be benefits of arts education, a much higher priority for schools should be economics education.  We just witnessed an election season that highlighted the general lack of economics knowledge among Americans.  No matter the benefits of arts education, they do not remedy the dire need for greater knowledge of economics.

That being said, the points Burgamy makes about arts education developing creative thinking skills is very valid.  In fact, these are skills that are useful even in a highly technical field such as engineering.  Here’s an idea!  Maybe we can carve out a year from English classes and allocate this time to economics and arts.  After all, the only thing I learned from four years of English - grammar - comprised only about a half year of four total years.  I can assure you, I have never needed to analyze The Scarlet Letter in my engineering career!

Tags: Aimee Burgamy, arts, Central Gwinnett, economics, education, election, engineering, finance, Gwinnett County Public Schools, marching band, Teacher of the Year, teachers, Trickum Middle

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